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Web Data Extraction System

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Database Systems

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Synonyms

Web information extraction system; Web macros; Web scraper; Wrapper generator

Definition

A web data extraction system is a software system that automatically and repeatedly extracts data from web pages with changing content and delivers the extracted data to a database or some other application. The task of web data extraction performed by such a system is usually divided into five different functions: (i) Web interaction, which comprises mainly the navigation to usually pre-determined target web pages containing the desired information; (ii) Support for wrapper generation and execution, where a wrapper is a program that identifies the desired data on target pages, extracts the data and transforms it into a structured format; (iii) Scheduling, which allows repeated application of previously generated wrappers to their respective target pages; (iv) Data transformation, which includes filtering, transforming, refining, and integrating data extracted from one or more sources and...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria

    Robert Baumgartner

  2. University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Wolfgang Gatterbauer

  3. Computing Lab., Oxford University, Wolfson Building, Parks Road, OX1 3QD, Oxford, UK

    Georg Gottlob

Authors
  1. Robert Baumgartner
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  2. Wolfgang Gatterbauer
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  3. Georg Gottlob
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Robert Baumgartner .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Ling Liu

  2. University of Waterloo School of Computer Science, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    M. Tamer Özsu

Section Editor information

  1. Computing Lab., Oxford Univ., Wolfson Building, Parks Road, OX1 3QD, Oxford, UK

    Georg Gottlob

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© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Baumgartner, R., Gatterbauer, W., Gottlob, G. (2016). Web Data Extraction System. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_1154-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_1154-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-7993-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Computer SciencesReference Module Computer Science and Engineering

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