Hey guys,
I've been working on a little system to improve the geekhack classifieds and would like your feedback.
This system scrapes the classifieds and compiles the information it finds into a formatted catalogue of WTS, WTB and WTT items.
It looks for little tags like these which can be added to classifieds OPs and uses them to form its catalogue:
[color=transparent]<<<[["WTS", "Dell QuietKey", "$20"], ["WTB", "NMB RT101+", "$80"], ["WTT", "Matias Quiet Click x200", "Cream Damped Alps x50"]]>>>[/color]This line is a JSON list. Each item in the list is itself a list, representing a listing, with three values - the category (WTS, WTB, WTT), the item, and the price. Price is a a kinda vague concept - for WTB it means the budget of the user, and for WTT it means desired items.
Only one of these lines can be present in any single OP. The tags <<< and >>> signify to the program the location of the JSON and the color tags are not necessary but are simply there to stop the JSONs from cluttering an OP.
The program automatically reads all the posts in the classifieds and turns these JSON lines into a formatted set of tables like below:
WTT ITEM | PRICE | USER | TOPIC |
| Matias Quiet Click x200 | Cream Damped Alps x50 | Dihedral | Topic Link |
WTS ITEM | PRICE | USER | TOPIC |
| Dell QuietKey | $20 | Dihedral | Topic Link |
WTB ITEM | PRICE | USER | TOPIC |
| NMB RT101+ | $80 | Dihedral | Topic Link |
What are your thoughts? Is this a worthwhile system that should be deployed. What improvements can be made to it. If you want to see the code I am happy to dump it into a GitHub, just ask.
