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How to read a table from an url?

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tom3w
tom3w on 2 Dec 2016
Answered: Toshiaki Takeuchi on 24 Oct 2023
Hi, I'd need some help. How is it possible to read a table from an url?
The following sequence allows constructing a URL object, opening a URL connection, setting up a buffered stream reader, and reading lines (line by line):
url = java.net.URL('http://www.mathworks.com')
is = openStream(url);
isr = java.io.InputStreamReader(is);
br = java.io.BufferedReader(isr);
s = char(readLine(br)); % can be repeated
I think bufferedReader is only appropriate to read contents row by row. In case the webpage contains a table, this code works, but does not read all the elements of the table, i.e. tbody
Example (java contents)
<div class="table-responsive no-padding-top"> : start of table, displayed in Matlab (e.g. command window)
<table width=... > : table formatting, displayed in Matlab
<thead>: start of table header, displayed in Matlab
<tr>: entire row related to table header, displayed in Matlab
<th> ... </th>: 1st element of header, displayed in Matlab
<th> ... </th>: 2nd element of header, displayed in Matlab
...
</tr>, displayed in Matlab
</thead>: end of header/description of column names, displayed in Matlab
<tbody>: full table with its contents, "<tbody>" displayed in Matlab
<tr>: 1st row of table, *not displayed* in Matlab
<td>...</td>: 1st cell of 1st row, *not displayed* in Matlab
<td>...</td>: 2nd cell of 1st row, *not displayed* in Matlab
</tr>: end of 1st row, *not displayed* in Matlab
<tr>: 2nd row of table, *not displayed* in Matlab
<td>...</td>: 1st cell of 1st row, *not displayed* in Matlab
<td>...</td>: 2nd cell of 1st row, *not displayed* in Matlab
</tr>: end of 2nd row, *not displayed* in Matlab
</tbody>: end of table contents, "</tbody>" displayed in Matlab
</table>: end of table object, displayed in Matlab
How can we read the details behind a table body (tbody)?
Many thanks for your support!
Thomas

Accepted Answer

Sid Jhaveri
Sid Jhaveri on 6 Dec 2016
Edited: KSSV on 22 Jun 2023
  1 Comment
tom3w
tom3w on 7 Dec 2016
The webread function works pretty well. Thank you Sid for your suggestions. Kr, Thomas

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More Answers (1)

Toshiaki Takeuchi
Toshiaki Takeuchi on 24 Oct 2023
url = "https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/text-files.html";
T = readtable(url,TableSelector="//TABLE[contains(.,'readtable')]", ...
ReadVariableNames=false)
T = 4×2 table
Var1 Var2 ________________ ___________________________________________ "readtable" "Create table from file" "writetable" "Write table to file" "readtimetable" "Create timetable from file (Since R2019a)" "writetimetable" "Write timetable to file (Since R2019a)"

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