Parse website contents

[sylhetiinamerica]

We have just setup a webserver with ESP-32 and hosting a small website. This site also displaying the time when last updated. Is there any driver or apps available to parse this time value and get into HE rule machine to remind me after certain time? I am not a programmer but can follow the instructions. Thanks

[thebearmay]

Might be able to use: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/thebearmay/hubitat/main/webScraper.groovy

[sylhetiinamerica]

Excellent, thanks thebearmay for your help. This is the one, I have been looking for . Thank you again

[sylhetiinamerica]

Please help. Can I use this device in Rule Machine to scape data from local web page? If so, how can I enter the search parameters?

[thebearmay]

You'll need to create a Custom Action and select the device

and then add the parameters in order.

[sylhetiinamerica]

I am very thankful to you for your time. It is now working with rule machine. Thank you again

[thebearmay]

Glad you find it useful, just paying it forward for all the help I received early on.

[sylhetiinamerica]

Greetings to you . Sorry for asking many questions. I was able to parse two time data from website and saved them as string in HUB Variable. Now, I would like to use these two string variables as trigger in Rule Machine to trigger action if certain time is equal to the HUB string variable. Could you please comment whether the parse data in the parse device can be converted into time instead of string in textReturned ?

[sburke781]

Can you show an example of the string you have in the HUB Variable and what you have currently stored in the parsed value for the device?

[sylhetiinamerica]

Hi sburke781, thanks for responding. I am using Web Scraper from thebearmay to get time and date from web page hosted in our house with ESP-32 Web server. I can get time and date value as string through the Web Scraper and store them in two string variables. As Web Scraper provided the data in string, I have to store them as string type. Now, I like to have a rule machine triggered when certain time is equal to the tEventTime. As the HUB Variable tEventTime is string type, I can not use this variable in the trigger that need DateTime type. I am stopped here. Any help on how to convert the string HUB variable into DateTime type?

[thebearmay]

This snippet from another thread might give you an idea:

@bravenel

I think what you would need to do is use a DateTime variable connector, and set that with the setDateTime() command, passing a properly formatted string.

You can see there the correct string format for this date/time:

This is the only mechanism I can think of that is going to allow you to go from a string (e.g. "2023-07-20T10:41:15.000-007") to a DateTime variable. Rule Machine does not have a method to do this, but a small custom app could do it.

[sburke781]

That's where I was heading as well, using a date format string to convert the string value to an actual date time and storing that in a hub variable

[sylhetiinamerica]

many thanks to both of you. I will work on the suggestion and update you once completed.

[sylhetiinamerica]

Good Morning to all, Please guide me on how to set the DateTime variable connector with the setDateTime() command. The string is from other string variable. In Rule Machine, I do not see option to add string value from another string variable. Please..

[sylhetiinamerica]

Just to update: I was able to convert the stored three string HUB Variables to datetime format in a custom apps, then used them to trigger event. Thanks to thebearmay for the webScraper.