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Pulling quotes from wikiquote

   Frihost Forum Index -> Scripting -> Php and MySQL
 




a.han
Hi

I hope someone can help me with this idea I have in my head. I'm quite new to webdevelopment but as I'm an engineer I have that engineer's mentality i.e. I learn to build (meaning I'm willing to learn a scripting language to complete my task).


So does anyone know how I can pull out a random quote off the fantastic Wikiquote website and display it on my own page.

I would ideally like to filter this "search" (by author or subject) and display a different quote on my website at a click of a button.

I read somewhere that I can pull quotes from a text file using php but would prefer to pull the quotes from wikiquote.


Thanks a bunch.
PatTheGreat42
I did a script in PHP that pulled a random quote from 4q.cc/chuck (A random Chuck Norris facts page) by using their random rss feed generator. Since a random quote always appeared on the same line in the rss feed, I was able to simply read the entire rss file into an array in PHP by using the file('filename') function.

However, the thing with Wikiquote is that each page is signifigantly different, due to the input from a multitude of users. However, the one constant is that all the quotes appear to be in an <li> tag. Therefore, it is concievable that you could filter the page down to just the <li> tags, and then simply use a function that looks like

Code:
$x = count($arrayWithQuotes) - 1;
echo $arrayWithQuotes[rand(0,$x)];


to display a random quote.

But that still needs the ability to go to a random page. But since you're keen on the search feature, a possibility is that you could have a user ask for a random quote from a partiicular person, and then you could grab a random quote from that page. Alternatively, you could keep a list of random people, and then pick a random quote from a random person.

It's still gonna take a lot of work, mostly because Wikiquote is so irregular, but that should do for a couple of starting pointers.
raver
i`m gonna pm you if i find a script i did about half a year ago for a gsm company.. the script tooked as input a page and tooked out of it all the infomration and store it in different variables, and the website from where it got the info was really messed up. I`ve worked on it alot, and it would be easy to adjust it to your needs. Just hope i find it, since i`ve changed my job two months ago Cool
a.han
You guys are legends in the making. Thanks for your help and I look forward to the pm!
PatTheGreat42
Ooh! A legend!
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