Processing fetched data

loopt

Hi,

Im trying to do a script that will fetch a odd list from few betting sites and then compare that data to find best odds for selected game. Problem is that I dont have idea how to process fetched data, for example I get this when all html tags are removed:

German 1 league (group)
Number Event Time 1 x 2 1x 2x
0555 Stuttgart-Bochum 20:00 2.10 3.20 1.50 2.10 2.50
............. (few more clubs)

Result
Number Event Time 1
0600 Ars/New-2:0 16:00 5.60
.......

Tennis M
Number Event Time 1 2
1313 Rosset M.-Dupuis A. 14:00 1.65 2.05
......

groups are not in the same order every day and there is a different number of clubs under a group (that depends on daily offer). Is there some algoritm to process this kind of data where group order changes every day.

Sorry for my bad English.

benbox

you would need to 'parse' the data... its a big subject to explain but you need to use all the fancy php functions that split data at specific characters (e.g. a 'tab' (\t)) and wacks it into an array... (things like explode).. you can then read it, maybe add it to a db etc.. unless you are really advanced (not me :p) then it would only work with regular data which is always in the same structure....

you might need to be careful about this however, as a lot of sites have copyright laws on their data

loopt

My problem is not with parsing data as this would be an easy task to do if group order, group title, structure of data is the same every day. Problem is that everything changes daily so script basiclly doesn`t know which group comes first, how many teams are under a group, how many odd types are under a group etc.

loopt

Can somebody help?