scraping a webpage for flood info

[yarrick22]

Hi,

I am looking to scrape the environment agency website for UK flood info, I have a list of 5 postcodes I want to check and I would like it so that excel scrapes the most flood warning info ..


So if I enter a postcode on the site
IE http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk...erm=RG21%207GP
it then shows a flood alert for this area, I would like to grab that particular info (the table in light green).

The web query tool in excel only grabs the whole page unfortunately - can anyone help please ?

Many thanks

[Leith Ross]

Hello yarrick22,

Welcome to the Forum!

How do you want the information to be arranged on the worksheet?
Do you have a sample workbook you can post?

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[yarrick22]

Hi there, thanks for the nice welcome!

Hopefully you will find my simple file attached.

So if you click on a postcode at the moment, it will take you to the appropriate flood agency alert page for that area.

However, I would like to replace that link with a button and it will update the "flood alert" and "information" columns with scraped data from the webpage (or even instead of a button it will automatically just refresh the webpage when you open it? But maybe that will be nasty if there is lots of postcodes..)
You can see if you click one of my postcode links, the webpage has the info I want in the two light green cells - I would hope to collect the text (doesnt need to have the picture) and put them in the two columns mentioned.


The other thing is if you click on the berkshire postcode, it will take you to a page showing the nearest area that is flooded, if this happens I would like to try and copy that link to the "information" column so I could click on it and it would take me to the webpage instead?

Did i explain well enough?

Many thanks

[Leith Ross]

Hello yarrick22,

Thanks for posting the workbook. Do you want just a single button to check each of the post codes in column "C"?

[yarrick22]

Hello,

I'm not really fussed if it is a single button or I have to press one for each postcode, but yes it is just to check the postcodes and tell me if the area is under floor alert. the flood alerts are "no warning", green, amber etc

Cheers

[Leith Ross]

Hello yarrick22,

The attached workbook has a single button that will update the status of all the postcodes. There are 3 status results: Flood Alert, No Warnings, and No Data. Let me know you think.

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[yarrick22]

Wow this is very nice indeed!

One thing became apparent, using postcodes like CF23 8FF: , the webpage will show, click here:

.. 2 links to 2 further areas nearby, which could actually affect the original postcode - so it should be an alert status like "check nearby".

It would be better if the displayed information in this case, which is:
"
Flood warning search results for postcode CF23 8FF

The flood warning areas nearest to you are listed below.
Please select one to view area flood information.
River Rhymney at Llanrumney

River Rhymney"


was put into the furtherinfo column on the excel sheet, retaining the clickable hyperlink/s so that it would take me to the webpage for that suggested area?

Apart from leaving the sheet, I cant think of another way that would display this extended info in the excel sheet nicely.



I had a go at it using msgbox to test but almost straight away came to a halt!

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Many thanks again