java Need with with Imgur program

[DrJohnSmitherson]

Hey guys,

I wanted to work on a new project just for fun, so I thought a program that downloaded imgur galleries would be cool. I am working on it, but the program will run through duplicates after 51 images usually.

I've looked at all i can and can't find the problem. My guess is that it's the server resetting me. I wanted a challenge so i tried to get past it. I tried creating a new url connection each time, I also created a seperate class that did the downloading and creating a new object of that class everytime but it didn't work.

Thoughts?

Source

http://shayconcepts.com/programming/ImgurGalleryDownloader/imgurDL.zip

[Aethec]

You are parsing the HTML page. Don't do that. Use imgur's API instead - from the documentation, you can just append ".xml" to any gallery page and it returns the gallery as an XML file.

In general, don't parse HTML pages unless there is no other way. It's not easy and it can change any day, making your program useless.

[Andre S. Veteran]

  On 04/10/2012 at 20:30, Aethec said:

In general, don't parse HTML pages unless there is no other way.

Especially not with regex.

[DrJohnSmitherson]

  On 04/10/2012 at 20:30, Aethec said:

You are parsing the HTML page. Don't do that. Use imgur's API instead - from the documentation, you can just append ".xml" to any gallery page and it returns the gallery as an XML file.

In general, don't parse HTML pages unless there is no other way. It's not easy and it can change any day, making your program useless.

Thanks! I'll take a look.

EDIT: it seems it only returns 56 images though :/

  On 05/10/2012 at 01:51, Dr_Asik said:

Especially not with regex.

I learned about regex and it has worked really well for me! I'll take a look at your link and find a better way to parse HTML. Thanks!

[Andre S. Veteran]

  On 05/10/2012 at 04:14, thatguyandrew1992 said:

I learned about regex and it has worked really well for me! I'll take a look at your link and find a better way to parse HTML. Thanks!

If you really need to parse HTML, you should use a proper HTML library; for Java there is HtmlUnit and Jsoup at least. Better would be to not parse any HTML and use imgur's API as Aethec suggested.

[DrJohnSmitherson]

  On 05/10/2012 at 06:05, Dr_Asik said:

If you really need to parse HTML, you should use a proper HTML library; for Java there is HtmlUnit and Jsoup at least. Better would be to not parse any HTML and use imgur's API as Aethec suggested.

But when using the API, I append the .xml but it doesn't show ALL the images in the gallery

[Aethec]

To get other pages, append /page/XXX to an existing gallery URL. XXX is the page number. Don't forget the .xml, too.

[DrJohnSmitherson]

  On 05/10/2012 at 14:05, Aethec said:

To get other pages, append /page/XXX to an existing gallery URL. XXX is the page number. Don't forget the .xml, too.

Thank you so much!! How did you find this? The API doc?

[ZakO]

  On 05/10/2012 at 19:59, thatguyandrew1992 said:

Thank you so much!! How did you find this? The API doc?

http://api.imgur.com/gallery

[DrJohnSmitherson]

  On 05/10/2012 at 20:02, ZakO said:

http://api.imgur.com/gallery

Thanks!

[DrJohnSmitherson]

So Im using an XML parser and the /page/#.xml and it's working perfectly! Superb help! Thanks guys!

Now if a server disconnects me, how can I reestablish a connection, as if I had restarted my program.

[DrJohnSmitherson]

Sometimes I get the java.net.ConnectException: Connection time out...

[ArialBlue]

try {

// le magic

} catch (Exception e)

{

// re-establish connection

}

[Andre S. Veteran]

  On 09/10/2012 at 02:00, ArialBlue said:

try {

// le magic

} catch (Exception e)

{

// re-establish connection

}

catch (ConnectException e) ... always catch the specific exception you want, and never the base class of all exceptions.

[DrJohnSmitherson]

If I catch that ConnectException, how do I reetasblish the connection?

[Aethec]

If you're only downloading files from Imgur, you don't have to start or restart the connection - you just download files, and if the download fails, retry.

[DrJohnSmitherson]

  On 09/10/2012 at 21:49, Aethec said:

If you're only downloading files from Imgur, you don't have to start or restart the connection - you just download files, and if the download fails, retry.

Hmm ok. Thanks! I will see what I can do.

[DrJohnSmitherson]

Ok guys, I need some more help. How do I get the xml of an album? They are apparently different than galleries! The xml page isn't coming up. Or if there isn't an xml, what is recommended to get the images?

Ex

http://imgur.com/a/HKtAR/

[ZakO]

  On 12/10/2012 at 04:27, thatguyandrew1992 said:

Ok guys, I need some more help. How do I get the xml of an album? They are apparently different than galleries! The xml page isn't coming up. Or if there isn't an xml, what is recommended to get the images?

Ex

http://imgur.com/a/HKtAR/

It's all there in the API documentation: http://api.imgur.com/resources_anon#album

Example: http://api.imgur.com/2/album/HKtAR

[DrJohnSmitherson]

  On 12/10/2012 at 14:05, ZakO said:

It's all there in the API documentation: http://api.imgur.com...rces_anon#album

Example: http://api.imgur.com/2/album/HKtAR

Thanks! I'm learning how to use APIs, I know this is all obvious. I thought I had looked through this. ill be sure to look extra hard!, >.<