Loading contents from another page into a variable as a string

Question

Is it possible to get the HTML of a div from another page in a variable as a string, so I can run a regex search to find a specific number?

from same domain yes, from other domain you'll need to proxify it server side — A. Wolff, Dec 29 '14 at 18:00
possible duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4560183/load-content-from-external-page-into-another-page-using-ajax-jquery?rq=1 — , Dec 29 '14 at 18:00

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:33

0

If you're loading content from the same domain, the answer @lawrence overflow linked to in his comment will do the trick:Load content from external page into another page using Ajax/jQuery

JS with jQuery:

$(document).ready(function() {
    $("#main").load('sourcePage.html #content');
});

Otherwise, you'll need to use server-side technology. Here's a Node.js server that proxies for another site:

JS (Node and Express):

var request=require('request');
var express = require('express');
var app = express();

//Put the source URL here:
var URL='http://www.nytimes.com';

app.get('/', function (req, res) {
    res.type('.html');
    request(URL,function(err,response,body){
        res.send(body);
    });
});

var server = app.listen(3000, function () {
  var host = server.address().address;
  var port = server.address().port;
  console.log('listening at http://%s:%s', host, port);
});

edited May 23 '17 at 10:33

Community

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answered Dec 29 '14 at 18:13

Max Heiber

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instead of wrapping around the head how to install Node and stuff, one line of PHP and AJAX (standard jQuery snip) is quite enough. – Roko C. Buljan Dec 29 '14 at 18:26
I wanted to show how to clip the page to a certain region and also how to make the solution more flexible. Plus, this was tagged as a JavaScript question, so I gave a JavaScript answer. Could you give your PHP solution? – Max Heiber Dec 29 '14 at 18:36
@Roko C. Buljan: I simplified the code in response to your comments. Fair enough. – Max Heiber Dec 29 '14 at 18:53
Mheiber, Here's my PHP solution, which basically differs by just one line of PHP. The AJAX is basically the same. The solution can be seen here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14999573/jquery-load-external-site-page (upvoted your answer for the shown effort!) – Roko C. Buljan Dec 29 '14 at 19:01
@RokoC.Buljan thanks for the elegant PHP solution and upvote. I'm sure there's a simpler Node solution, but I'm too used to Express. – Max Heiber Dec 29 '14 at 19:05

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:33

If that other page is in your own domain:
jsBin demo

$('<div />').load("otherpage.html", function(data){
  var num = /\d+/.exec( $(this).find("#number").text() );
  console.log( num ); // 45
});

^{Note: the above presumes the desired number is somewhere inside the #number element. The regex /\d+/ is used to get all the numbers from that element.}

If the page is not in your domain:
jQuery load external site page

you'll first need to get that page content using PHP with file_get_contents. After the desired content is on your server you'll not run any more into security issues and you can than respond to AJAX with the grabbed content.

Loading contents from another page into a variable as a string

2 Answers2