Posted: December 21 2002 at 11:11 | IP Logged

I think Weather Underground has done something again! I've spent the last few hours trying to get the GET WEATHER macro to work again. Pulling out the temp and humidity works fine, but, the forecast does not.

Everything looks fine in the macro and the source code of the page. The important parts are within the 50,000 characters it pulls in. Simulating the code in a text editor by using the search function on the source HTML indicates it should work.

Dave, when you get a moment, can you give it a look?

Thanks - Tony

Posted: December 23 2002 at 14:04 | IP Logged

Tony,

I'll take a look at it.  Im also going to look at using a different site as well since Weather Underground seems to like playing with the HTML a lot.

Dave.

Posted: December 23 2002 at 14:59 | IP Logged

Tony,

Checked it out and it's not really anything that Weather Underground did other than the HTML getting longer and longer.  It seems that the problem is with the POS function and the optional START parameter.  Apparently the START parameter does not behave correctly when the value is in the vicinity of 34000.  I would normally think that the problems would occur at 32767 but that does not seem to be the case.  It does appear though that the internal datawindow POS function does seem to have some kind of bug associated with large START positions.  Since this is internal to the PowerBuilder language, I have no control over it.  However, it was simple enough to program around in the GETWEATHER macro.  Below is a paste of the SQL for the new version:

insert into macroheader values ('GET WEATHER','GET WEATHER',4,4,252,96,0,0,0,12632256,0,1,1,'MACROS');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',1,15,'[LOCAL1]',NULL,'left(ph_geturl("http://www.weatherunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=32707"),50000)');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',2,15,'[LOCAL2]',NULL,'pos(ph_getvar_s(1,1),"<b>",pos(ph_getvar_s(1,1),"<td>Temperature</td>")) + 3');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',3,15,'[LOCAL3]',NULL,'mid(ph_getvar_s(1,1),ph_getvar_n(1,2),3)');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',4,15,'[LOCAL4]',NULL,'"The temperature is " + if(isnumber(ph_getvar_s(1,3)),ph_getvar_s(1,3),left(ph_getvar_s(1,3),2)) + " degrees. "');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',5,15,'[LOCAL2]',NULL,'pos(ph_getvar_s(1,1),"<b>",pos(ph_getvar_s(1,1),"<td>Humidity</td>",ph_getvar_n(1,2))) + 3');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',6,15,'[LOCAL3]',NULL,'mid(ph_getvar_s(1,1),ph_getvar_n(1,2),3)');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',7,15,'[LOCAL4]',NULL,'ph_getvar_s(1,4) + "The humidity is " + if(isnumber(ph_getvar_s(1,3)),ph_getvar_s(1,3),left(ph_getvar_s(1,3),2)) + " percent. "');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',8,15,'[LOCAL2]',NULL,'pos(ph_getvar_s(1,1),"<b>Forecast for ")');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',9,15,'[LOCAL1]',NULL,'mid(ph_getvar_s(1,1),ph_getvar_n(1,2))');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',10,15,'[LOCAL2]',NULL,'pos(ph_getvar_s(1,1),"<td align=left><b>") + 18');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',11,15,'[LOCAL3]',NULL,'pos(ph_getvar_s(1,1),"</b>",ph_getvar_n(1,2))');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',12,15,'[LOCAL4]',NULL,'ph_getvar_s(1,4) + "The forecast for " + mid(ph_getvar_s(1,1),ph_getvar_n(1,2),ph_getvar_n(1,3) - ph_getvar_n(1,2)) + " is "');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',13,15,'[LOCAL2]',NULL,'ph_getvar_n(1,3) + 9');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',14,15,'[LOCAL3]',NULL,'pos(ph_getvar_s(1,1),"</td>",ph_getvar_n(1,2))');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',15,15,'[LOCAL4]',NULL,'ph_getvar_s(1,4) + mid(ph_getvar_s(1,1),ph_getvar_n(1,2),ph_getvar_n(1,3) - ph_getvar_n(1,2))');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',16,15,'[LOCAL2]',NULL,'pos(ph_getvar_s(1,4),"winds")');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',17,16,'',NULL,'if(ph_getvar_n(1,2) = 0,3,1)');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',18,15,'[LOCAL4]',NULL,'replace(ph_getvar_s(1,4),ph_getvar_n(1,2),5,"wins")');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',19,16,'',NULL,'- 3');
insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',20,9,'',NULL,'ph_getvar_s(1,4)');

The main difference is that when Im going to get the forecast (which is near the limit of the START parameter), I just throw away the HTML in the beginning.  This will effectively reduce the values within the START parameter in the POS function.

Dave.

Posted: December 23 2002 at 16:57 | IP Logged

Glad to see that it was an internal thing; I didn't think I saw anything wrong! I'll check that out tonight.

Thanks - Tony

Posted: December 23 2002 at 22:59 | IP Logged

I think the hyperlink messed it up. This works...

insert into macrodetail values ('GET WEATHER',1,15,'[LOCAL1]',NULL,'left(ph_geturl(www.weatherunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=60014", 50000);

Trying to confuse me with the ph_getvar's, huh?

Thanks Dave! - Tony

Posted: December 25 2002 at 19:08 | IP Logged

I guess when I pasted the SQL into the messageboard edit, it automatically interpreted a portion of the code as a hyperlink and some quotes and parenthesis were omitted.

Ive edited the post and tested it so it should work properly now.

Thanks for keeping me on my toes Tony

Dave.

Posted: January 23 2003 at 20:45 | IP Logged

Well, the temp has dropped here, and I have found a "bug" (at least in my area ) with the GetWeather macro.  The line that says, "mid( "[LOCAL1]", [LOCAL2],  3)" assumes that the temperature will always be in the double-digits. That would be nice! I'll do some tweaking and post up so others that stole, I mean, use this macro where it's cold will not have stray characters pulled in.

Tony

Posted: January 23 2003 at 21:17 | IP Logged

Oh, I was wrong!

Changing...

Set System | LOCAL3 | mid( "[LOCAL1]", [LOCAL2], 3)

to...

Set System | LOCAL3 | pos("[LOCAL1]", "</b>", [LOCAL2])
Set System | LOCAL3 | mid( "[LOCAL1]", [LOCAL2], [LOCAL3] - [LOCAL2])

...fixes it.

Tony