Pulling data from a .asps site

[Tim Williams]

On 27/11/2007, hall.jeff at gmail.com <hall.jeff at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's a government website which shows public data for banks. We'd
> like to pull the data down programmatically but the data is "hidden"
> behind .aspx...
>
> Is there anyway in Python to hook in directly to a browser (firefox or
> IE) to do the following...
>
> 1) Fill the search criteria
> 2) Press the "Search" button
> 3) Press another button (the CSV button) on the resulting page
> 4) Then grab the data out of the notepad file that pops up
>
> If this is a wild good chase, let me know... (or if there's a better
> way besides Python... I may have to explore writing a firefox plug-in
> or something)...

Amongst others, IEC will allow you to open an IE browser window,
navigate around sites (including pushing buttons), and retrieve text.

http://www.mayukhbose.com/python/IEC/index.php

HTH :)