Example of screen-scraping in PHP

batters.php

<?
//include('dbconfig.inc.php');
//include('db.class.php');
//include('simplehtmldom/simple_html_dom.php');

$availableTeams = array("ARI","ATL","BAL","BOS","CIN","CHC","CHW","CLE","COL","DET","FLA","HOU","KCR","LAA","LAD","MIL","MIN","NYM","NYY","OAK","PHI","PIT","SD","SF","SEA","STL","TB","TEX","TOR","WSN");
foreach($availableTeams as $availableTeam)
{?>
<a href='batters.php?team=<?=$availableTeam?>'><?=$availableTeam?></a> |
<?}?>

<br><br>

<?

$year = ($_GET['year'] ? $_GET['year'] : 2011);
if( $_GET['team'] )
{
  $teams = array($_GET['team']);
}
else
{
	exit("No team specified");
}
	//$teams = array("ARI","ATL","BAL","BOS","CIN","CHC","CHW","CLE","COL","DET","FLA","HOU","KCR","LAA","LAD","MIL","MIN","NYM","NYY","OAK","PHI","PIT","SD","SF","SEA","STL","TB","TEX","TOR","WSN");

foreach($teams as $team)
{
	set_time_limit(30);
	$url = "http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/$team/$year.shtml";
	print "<div><a href='$url'>$team Page ($year)</a> - <span style='color:red;'>Red indicates a low power/high average player</span></div>";
	print "<hr>";
	$raw = file_get_contents($url);
	$newlines = array("\t","\n","\r","\x20\x20","\0","\x0B");
	$content = str_replace($newlines, "", html_entity_decode($raw));

	$start = strpos($content,"id=\"team_batting\"");
	$end = strpos($content,'</table>',$start) + 8;	
	$table = substr($content,$start,$end-$start);
	
	preg_match_all("|<tr(.*)</tr>|U",$table,$rows);

	foreach ($rows[0] as $row){
	$data = "";
	
    if ((strpos($row,'<th')===false)){
    
        preg_match_all("|<td(.*)</td>|U",$row,$cells);
        
		if( is_numeric(strip_tags($cells[0][0])) )
		{
		    print "<div>";
			for($i = 0; $i <=27; $i++)
			{
				$data .= strip_tags($cells[0][$i]) . ", ";
			}
			//print $team . ", ";
			preg_match("/.*?players\/*.?\/(.*?)\.shtml.*?/",$cells[0][2],$matches);
			//print $matches[1]; // ID
			
			//print $data;
			
			//Rk,Pos,Name,Age,G,PA,AB,R,H,2B,3B,HR,RBI,SB,CS,BB,SO,BA,OBP,SLG,OPS,OPS+,TB,GDP,HBP,SH,SF,IBB,ID
			$ID = $matches[1];
			$key = "$ID";
			$x[$key]['Team'] = $team;
			$x[$key]['Position'] = strip_tags($cells[0][1]);
			$x[$key]['Name'] = strip_tags($cells[0][2]);
			$x[$key]['G'] += strip_tags($cells[0][4]);
			$x[$key]['AB'] += strip_tags($cells[0][6]);
			$x[$key]['R'] += strip_tags($cells[0][7]);
			$x[$key]['H'] += strip_tags($cells[0][8]);
			$x[$key]['2B'] += strip_tags($cells[0][9]);
			$x[$key]['3B'] += strip_tags($cells[0][10]);
			$x[$key]['HR'] += strip_tags($cells[0][11]);
			$x[$key]['RBI'] += strip_tags($cells[0][12]);
			$x[$key]['BB'] += strip_tags($cells[0][15]);
			$x[$key]['HBP'] += strip_tags($cells[0][24]);
			$x[$key]['SF'] += strip_tags($cells[0][26]);			
			$x[$key]['SB'] += strip_tags($cells[0][13]);
			$x[$key]['BA'] = GetBattingAverage($x[$key]);
			$x[$key]['OBP'] = GetOBP($x[$key]);			
			print "</div>";
		}
    }
  }
}

if( $x )
{
	print "<div>Batter, Bats, Avg, HR, Contact, Power, Speed</div>";
	foreach($x as $key => $player)
	{
		//Batter Name (6 chars), Bats, Avg, HR, Contact, Power, Speed
		$BA = str_replace("0.","",$player['BA']);
		$bats = (strstr($player['Name'], "*") || strstr($player['Name'], "#") ? "L":"R" );
		$PWR = GetPower($player['HR']);
		$CNT = GetContact($BA);
		$SPD = GetSpeed($player['3B'], $player['SB']);
		//$HRAB = number_format($player['HR']/$player['AB'],3) * 100;
		$warn = ($BA >= 280 && $PWR < 830 ? "red" : "black"); // check for good hitters with low power
		//$extras = "$player[AB], $HRAB, $player[OBP]";
	
		$url = "http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/".substr($key,0,1)."/$key.shtml";
		print "<div><a href='$url'>$player[Name]</a>, $bats, $BA, $player[HR], $CNT, <span style='color:$warn;'>$PWR</span>, $SPD</div>";
		//return "<tr><td>$team</td><td>$name</td><td>$bats</td><td>$BA</td><td>$x[HR]</td><td>$CNT</td><td><span style='color:$warn;'>$PWR</span></td><td>$SPD</td><td>$extras, $x[Year]</td></tr>";
	}
}
else exit("team data not found");

function GetBattingAverage($player)
  {
    $AB = ($player['AB']);
	return ($AB ? number_format($player['H']/$AB,3) : .000);
  }
function GetOBP($player)
{
  $top = $player['H'] + $player['BB'] + $player['HBP'];
  $bottom = $player['AB'] + $player['BB'] + $player['HBP'] + $player['SF'];
  return ($bottom ? number_format($top/$bottom,3) : .000);
}

function GetSpeed($triples, $SB)
{
	$SPD = (.5*$SB) + $triples + 120;
	return ceil($SPD <= 144 ? $SPD : 144);
}	
	
function GetPower($HR)
{
  $max = 954;
  $min = 725;
  $maxValue = 40;
  $value = ($HR/$maxValue) * ($max - $min) + $min;
  return ceil($value <= $max ? $value : $max);
}

function GetContact($AVG)
{
  $max = 64;
  $min = 0;
  $maxValue = 400;
  $value = $max - (($AVG/$maxValue) * ($max - $min));
  return floor(($value >= $min ? $value : $min));

}

?>

scraper.php

<?
class scraper
{  
	public $rawContent;
	public $sanitizedContent;
	public $startPosition;
	public $endPosition;
	private $url;
	
	public function __construct($url)
	{
		$this->url = $url;
		
		set_time_limit(30);
		$this->rawContent = file_get_contents($this->url);
		$newlines = array("\t","\n","\r","\x20\x20","\0","\x0B");
		$this->sanitizedContent = str_replace($newlines, "", html_entity_decode($this->rawContent));
	}
	
	// Fetches everything from start to finish, including the start text and end text. This function is 
	// called by every other fetch function.
	public function fetch($start, $end)
	{	
		$this->startPosition = strpos($this->sanitizedContent, $start);
		$this->endPosition = strpos($this->sanitizedContent, $end, $this->startPosition) + strlen($end);	
		
		return substr($this->sanitizedContent,$this->startPosition,$this->endPosition-$this->startPosition);
	}
	
	// Fetches everything between the start and the finish text
	public function fetchBetween($start, $end)
	{
		$data = $this->fetch($start, $end);
		$startPosition = strlen($start);
		$length = strlen($start) + strlen($end)-1;
		$length = strlen($data) - strlen($start) - strlen($end);
		return trim(substr($data, $startPosition, $length));
	}
	
	// Takes scraped tabular data and returns it in a dimensioned array
	public function fetchTable($start, $end, $retainTags=false)
	{
		$data = $this->fetch($start, $end);
		
		preg_match_all("|<tr(.*)</tr>|U",$data,$rows);
		
		$arr = array();
		foreach($rows[0] as $row)
		{
			preg_match_all("|<td(.*)</td>|U",$row,$cells);	
			$row = array();
			foreach($cells[0] as $cell)
			{
				$cellData = ($retainTags ? $cell : strip_tags($cell) );
				$row[] = $cellData;
			}
			if( sizeof($row) )$arr[] = $row;
		}
		
		return $arr;
	}
}