Scripting stock quotes (AOL or other)

[Wizyrd]

I am trying to script AOL to get a list of stock quotes for import into FileMaker. AOL has the Stock quote class with a whole bunch of properties, but I can’t seem to make it get a quote for me. (the properties I’m interested in are closing, 52 week high, 52 week low, and P/E)

Does anyone know how to do this in AOL? Can this information be AppleScripted off another web site or service?

Thanks,

Joseph :-j

[jonn8]

I couldn’t figure out AOL’s stock quote class. Here’s a script to lift it off of Yahoo!'s quote service. Their format may change in the future which may break this so if it stops working, that may be the answer. I’ve also included a little code so if you go to Mac OS X, you can do this more easily.

set the_stock to “AAPL”
my [color=green]get_quote/color

on [color=green]get_quote/color
set the_URL to (“http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=” & the_stock & “&d=t” as string)
set temp_html_file to ((path to temporary items) as string) & “sqtemp.txt”
tell application “URL Access Scripting” to download the_URL to file temp_html_file replacing yes
set the_HTML to read file temp_html_file
–when you move to OS X, delete the 2 lines above and uncomment the next line
–set the_HTML to do shell script "cURL " & (quoted form of the_URL)
set last_trade to (my get_substring(the_HTML, “Last Trade
”, “”))
set last_trade to (my get_substring(last_trade, “”, “”))
set high_low_52 to (my get_substring(the_HTML, “52-wk Range
”, “”))
set AppleScript’s text item delimiters to " - "
copy (every text item of high_low_52) to {low_52, high_52}
set AppleScript’s text item delimiters to “”
set p_e to (my get_substring(the_HTML, “P/E
”, “”))
return {the_stock:the_stock, last_trade:last_trade, high_52:high_52, low_52:low_52, p_e:p_e}
end get_quote

on get_substring(the_string, start_delim, end_delim)
set offset_start to (offset of start_delim in the_string) + (count of characters of start_delim)
set the_string to (text offset_start thru -1 of the_string)
set offset_end to (offset of end_delim in the_string) - 1
return (text 1 thru offset_end of the_string)
end get_substring

–this script was automatically tagged for
–color coded syntax by Script to Markup Code
–written by Jon Nathan

Jon

[Wizyrd]

Thanks!

I forgot to include the daily Change as a field when I asked, but using your script as a template, it’s a fairly easy matter to include it in myself. (Thanks!).

Now for the fun part… gettting this stuff into a FileMaker database, bypassing my usual pass through Tex-Edit…

Joseph