Pulling data from a .asps site

[Diez B. Roggisch]

hall.jeff at gmail.com schrieb:
> There's a government website which shows public data for banks. We'd
> like to pull the data down programmatically but the data is "hidden"
> behind .aspx...
> 
> Is there anyway in Python to hook in directly to a browser (firefox or
> IE) to do the following...
> 
> 1) Fill the search criteria
> 2) Press the "Search" button
> 3) Press another button (the CSV button) on the resulting page
> 4) Then grab the data out of the notepad file that pops up
> 
> If this is a wild good chase, let me know... (or if there's a better
> way besides Python... I may have to explore writing a firefox plug-in
> or something)...

There needs no browser to be involved - unless there is AJAX in the 
game, and even then - after alle, it's all HTTP-requests.

Whichfor there are several options to work with - one popular is

http://wwwsearch.sourceforge.net/mechanize/

Diez