zap2xml - a free zap2it scraper

[jbodin]

Lovely -- looks like the http://zap2xml.110mb.com/ site is dead.

[smajor]

Lovely -- looks like the http://zap2xml.110mb.com/ site is dead.

Hopefully it'll be back or relocated. I still have the author's gmail address, maybe I'll send a note to him.

[TomH]

Lovely -- looks like the http://zap2xml.110mb.com/ site is dead.

Now looks okay from here

[fla]

Non-printable characters in gbpvr.db3 programme description

Is this a bug in zap2xml or in gbpvr's xmltv import?

Running this sqlite query on gbpvr.db3:

Code:

SELECT description,hex(description) FROM programme where name = 'Nova' and sub_title = 'Master of the Killer Ants'

gives this result:

Code:

Jaglavak army ant to fight off termites. 4A61676C6176616B2061726D7920616E7420746F206669676874206F6666207465726D697465732E

Jaglavak army ant to fight off termites.
0D0A09090909094A61676C6176616B2061726D7920616E7420746F206669676874206F6666207465726D697465732E0D0A09090909

The same show was playing twice but one occurrence has CR LF TAB TAB TAB TAB TAB characters surrounding the description in the programme table.

The XRecord export feature generates an invalid file that crashes the XRecord import feature in this case which is how I noticed. This also causes duplicates to be recorded by CDK Scheduler since the description doesn't match. I could make XRecord & CDK scheduler filter out these characters but might as well kill the bug at the source.

[fla]

Sub do you think gbpvr's xmltv import function should trim leading and trailing whitespace like CR LF TAB before storing the description field in the PROGRAMME table or is this clearly zap2xml's responsibility when generating xmltv.xml?

[fla]

If you are using the perl script version, the attached file has been updated to correct the channel number/callsign and show description problems. This was updated from the 3-11-2008 release.

Whitebar did your changes ever make it into the official version at http://zap2xml.110mb.com/? I can see one line in your version like:

Code:

$self->handler(text => sub { $programs{$cp}{description} = &trim(shift) }, "dtext");

that becomes the following in the current (2008-05-29) official version:

Code:

$self->handler(text => sub { $programs{$cp}{description} = (shift) }, "dtext");

This leads me to beleive that your changes were lost. I'd mail the patch/changes to the author myself but I don't have the original 2008-03-11 so I don't know what all your changes were.

[Mike S]

Is anybody else having trouble. My file is only 855K

[ElTech]

Is anybody else having trouble. My file is only 855K

Yes, it seems to have started a couple days ago. It's taking all the program data and putting it all under one channel. Hope someone sorts it out soon, I usually use the MSN scraper, but Cogeco rearranged some of their channels, and Zap2it is the only one that reflects those changes.

[Mike S]

Looks like the author is on top of it with an update.

[Deusxmachina]

Y'know, pretty soon I'm going to give up and start paying for Schedules Direct. But I'll still make sure to scrape from Zap2it multiple times a day just out of spite.