[LogicError]

My highschool recently switched over to a block schedule, requiring us to convert our schedule from a list of classes to our actual schedule by hand. While it is difficult to explain without more specifics, basically I want to do this:

Parse information from a web page, extracting all the needed scheduling information.

Inputting this information into a scheduling template, with all the information in the right places on this template.

Saving all this complete schedule to a PDF.

I wouldn't imagine this would be too difficult to do. I know some C++ and C#, but know Java the best. Is Java the right language to do this? Can anyone point me in the right direction to finding out the specifics of each task (Primarily the web page parsing, as I know absolutely nothing about that.)

I am solid the fundamentals of Java. I am hoping/assuming this project has a lot I don't know. The more I need to learn, the better.

Thanks

[natecat]

Well I would read up on how to download a file from a website. Instead of outputting the byte[] you get from reading the file to a file, construct a new string like this:

new String(byteArray);

Then use string.split(" "); with HTML tags that you notice around the schedule to parse it into custom objects. Good luck!

[blackcompe]

You should look into a XML/HTML parser, like jsoup or Java's built-in APIs for parsing web content. For pdf stuff, see iText. I don't know what you mean about the template stuff.

It doesn't matter what language you use. Just use what you know and what has the necessary tools to accomplish the task.

As far as specifics, I don't know that anyone is going to walk you through this exactly. Break the project into several tasks (the first being parsing the web page) and start working on that.

If you have specific programming problems, we'll help you.

This post has been edited by blackcompe: 03 September 2012 - 02:06 PM

[macosxnerd101]

Since this isn't homework, wouldn't it be easier just to copy your schedule over by hand?

[LogicError]

macosxnerd101, on 03 September 2012 - 05:19 PM, said:

Since this isn't homework, wouldn't it be easier just to copy your schedule over by hand?

More of just a learning thing.

Thanks for all the advice.

This post has been edited by LogicError: 03 September 2012 - 07:01 PM