At 11:59 AM -0700 10/9/06, Paul Lemmons wrote: >From: Tim <ignored_mailbox@xxxxxxxxxxxx> >Date: 10/07/2006 09:55 PM > >> On Fri, 2006-10-06 at 09:35 -0700, Paul Lemmons wrote: >>> For anyone who is interested, the script will watch any number of >>> pages and will report via email if it changes. It is run via cron on >>> whatever period you wish. Daily is probably often enough. It has two >>> modes of watching. The first simply compares the page you are seeing >>> now with the one you saw the last time you looked. The second method >>> only compares the links within the page. >> >> Have you considered just comparing HTTP headers? >Ok, I have considered it now and it would be fairly easy to accomplish. >I am not sure it would be valuable though. There is a significant amount >of data in the headers that is different every time the page is called. >Are there particular fields that are only updated when the content of >the page has changed? Or were you looking for something else completely? This is easy to do in Python. See ch. 11.3 in Mark Pilgrim's book _Dive Into Python_ <http://diveintopython.org/toc/index.html>. Note that the book is for "experienced programmers"; if you aren't one, you might still be able to benefit from the discussion of the HTTP headers. To learn Python, one would do well to first read the Python Tutorial <http://docs.python.org/tut/>, which is a classic on the order of K&R. -- ____________________________________________________________________ TonyN.:' The Great Writ <mailto:tonynelson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> ' is no more. <http://www.georgeanelson.com/>
