Google local search regex

danambroseUK has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello,

I would like to query and use the data returned from a google local search... For those who dont know the google local search this can be found here...

http://www.google.co.uk/local?hl=en&lr=&q=pizza&near=Colchester+CO3+9FA&sa=X&oi=localr

Using Lynx, I was able to get a text dump of the page


   [1]Google Local


   _______________________  _________________________________   Search
   What
   Where [_] Remember this location

    Local  Search within: [2]1 mile - [3]5 miles - 15 miles - [4]45
   miles

   Show only: [5]Pizza Delivery & Takeaway - [6]Takeaway Food

   A. [7]1st & Always Sam's Pizzeria
   01206 575555 5 Crouch St
   Colchester, CO3 3EN
   1.8 mi NE - [8]Directions

   References: [9]the-business-search.co.uk - [10]2 more ť
   B. [11]Pizza Italia Plus
   01206 545500 34a Mersea Rd
   Colchester, CO2 7ES
   1.9 mi E - [12]Directions

   C. [13]Pizza Express plc
   01206 760680 1 St. Runwald Street
   Colchester, CO1 1AG
   1.9 mi NE - [14]Directions

   References: [15]bbc.co.uk - [16]2 more ť
   D. [17]Perfect Pizza
   01206 546444 1 Middleborough
   Colchester, CO1 1QS
   2.0 mi NE - [18]Directions

   References: [19]perfectpizza.co.uk
   E. [20]Pizza Hut (UK) Ltd
   01206 574478 48-50 High St
   Colchester, CO1 1DH
   2.0 mi NE - [21]Directions

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etc
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[download]

What I would like is a regex to extarct the Name,Telephone,Address and distance of each record returned

Any help would be really appricated.

Dan

Comment on Google local search regex Download Code

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Re: Google local search regex by marto (Cardinal) on Sep 30, 2005 at 13:20 UTC
Hi danambroseUK, If you have not done so already you may want to read the Google terms of service. "You may not take the results from a Google search and reformat and display them" Martin	[reply]
Re^2: Google local search regex by danambroseUK (Beadle) on Sep 30, 2005 at 13:30 UTC
I didnt read that no! Hypothetically speaking, how would one achieve the required result? :) Dan	[reply]
Re^3: Google local search regex by marto (Cardinal) on Sep 30, 2005 at 14:03 UTC
One would sign up for an API Key (after reading and agreeing to the Ts & Cs): "To access the Google Web APIs service, you must create a Google Account and obtain a license key. Your Google Account and license key entitle you to 1,000 automated queries per day." Then take a look at Cpan results for Google , such as WWW::Search::Google and start from there perhaps. Martin	[reply]
Re: Google local search regex by spatterson (Pilgrim) on Sep 30, 2005 at 13:47 UTC
It looks like the google SOAP API should let you search by region: http://www.google.com/apis/reference.html#searchrequest just another cpan module author	[reply]
Re: Google local search regex by puploki (Hermit) on Sep 30, 2005 at 13:48 UTC
As marto has already said, you can't parse their web page directly, however, you can sign up for an API key which allows you to make around 1000 queries a day (I think) for you own custom applications. It works with SOAP::Lite apparently.	[reply]
Re^2: Google local search regex by danambroseUK (Beadle) on Sep 30, 2005 at 14:08 UTC
I have investigated down this route, but the google local search is not part of the google search API, thus me trying to get at the data this way... Dan	[reply]
Re: Google local search regex by Cody Pendant (Prior) on Sep 30, 2005 at 23:53 UTC
All legal/moral questions aside, the quickest way would be to download the source, by getting the page with LWP::UserAgent and grabbing the right bits. A simple regex `m\|<nobr>([\d ]+)</nobr>` will do that for the phone numbers for instance. But Google will send back a 403 unless you tell LWP::UserAgent to pretend to be a regular browser. Which, exercise for the reader and of course, brings us back to the legal/moral thing. ($_='kkvvttuu bbooppuuiiffss qqffssmm iibbddllffss') =~y~b-v~a-z~s; print	[reply] [d/l]