Posted by
Daniel Haran on
Mar 08, 2007; 6:05am
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/postal-codes-campaign-next-steps-tp932p937.html
Hello,
I made some progress trying to get some information from parl.gc.ca.
The following may only be of interest to techies...
After extracting the list of MP codes from
http://webinfo.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/MainMPsCompleteList.aspx?TimePeriod=Current&Language=EI tried getting more information from individual MP pages. Two
scraping kits later, after REXML choked on XPath queries and various
other tech horrors (take a look at the source... __VIEWSTATE weighs in
at 8k, even tidy can't parse it, etc), I decided to resort to Dapper.
E.g.:
http://webinfo.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/ProfileMP.aspx?Key=78902&Language=E=>
http://www.dapper.net/RunDapp?dappName=CanadianMPdetails&v=1&variableArg_0=78902I'll use some regexps to clean up what I couldn't get Dapper to
extract, and publish the whole as a db and a RESTful web service so no
one else ever need go through this.
Let me know if this is useful and/or if anything is missing.
-Daniel.
On 3/6/07, Russell McOrmond <
[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>
> Off-topic, but might be relevant to some other later project...
>
> Daniel Haran wrote:
> > * That was prompted by makepovertyhistory's latest action alert, which
> > could have been made more effective by personalizing with MP names and
> > phone numbers. You can see a copy of it here:
> >
http://www.makepovertyhistory.ca/e/take-action/e-alerts/2007-03-05.html>
> Sometimes it isn't a CivicAccess issue, but other timing/funding
> issues that cause these things. There are other reasons why that
> specific e-alert pointed to parl.gc.ca rather than using the already
> purchased postal-code --> EDID database.
>
>
> We have 308 MPs (plus the Minister for Public Works) with information
> about each, and I don't know of any group that is maintaining a table of
> information about these MPs. While we at MPH keep the name and email
> address updated in our database, we didn't keep the phone number or
> constituency office updated which is one of the things we were wanting
> people to look up.
>
>
> Does anyone know of a structured WIKI, something that would allow a
> group to collaboratively maintain a table of information?
>
> --
> Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <
http://www.flora.ca/>
> Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property
> rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!
>
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/>
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> manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or
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>
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