downloading a column of a table from webpage

[R.VENKATARAMAN]

I tried to browse through the google and google newsgroups but I am not able
to get saisfactory solution
My problem is :

I have an excel spreadsheet prepared.
I want a column form a table in a webpage to be incorporated in one of the
columns of this spread sheet.
I tried through <data-get externaldata> and tried to create a new web query.
in the new webquery dialog box I filled up the webpage address.
But I want a particular column in a particular table of this webpage
I dont know what is the name or number of this table though I tried to view
the source.
of course I can download the entire webpage onto an excel worksheet. That is
as good as the solution I am having given below:

At present I am solving this by this method -----l copy-paste the required
table from the webpage into a worksheet and then copy the column into my
spreadsheet(if necessary by a macro or a vba programme)

is this the only solutionl

thanks and regards.

 

[Father Guido]

At present I am solving this by this method -----l copy-paste the required
table from the webpage into a worksheet and then copy the column into my
spreadsheet(if necessary by a macro or a vba programme)

is this the only solutionl

yes

 

[Harlan Grove]

yes

Maybe, maybe not. In theory (meaning I have no intention of doing this myself),
it should be possible to use a program like wget

(http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=23617&package_id=16430)

to fetch the web page in full and save it as an HTTP or plain text file locally,
then open the file and search for the desired table, then count through to the
n_th <td>...</td> tag (field) within each <tr>...</tr> tag (record) within the
table. More theoretically, since UDFs can call Shell and read text files using
primitive Open, Input #, and Close statements, this could even be made automatic
with normal (a very bad idea, though) or full (a much better idea) recalc.

 

[R.VENKATARAMAN]

thanks. I found another method . use <data-getexternaldata-new webquery.>
only thing the fillingup of the dialog box is a pain. Besides the whole
table is downloaded and then you can use vlookup function to transfer the
data from one column(s).