[R] Stuck ...can't get sapply and xmlTreeParse working

[jim holtman]

The value of 'url.zill' is a vector of 407 character strings:

Browse[1]> str(url.zill)
 chr [1:407] "http://www.zillow.com/webservice/GetDeepSearchResults.htm?zws-id=X1-ZWz1bup03e49vv_5kvb6&address=10+PACER+LN&citystatezip=East+"|
__truncated__ ...

Isn't it supposed to be just a single file name?

On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 8:42 PM, eric <ericstrom at aol.com> wrote:
> Can't seem to get the code below working. It gets stuck on line 24 inside the
> function hm; comments show the line in question. The function hm is called
> by sapply and is at the bottom of the code. Other stuff above line 24 works
> correctly including the first couple of lines of the function hm. Should I
> be using a different apply function or am I doing something wrong with
> xmlTreeParse ?
>
>
> library(XML)
> url.montco <-
> "http://webapp.montcopa.org/sherreal/salelist.asp?saledate=07/27/2011"
> tbl <-data.frame(readHTMLTable(url.montco))[, c(3,5,6,8,9)]
> tbl <-tbl[2: length(tbl[,1]),]
> names(tbl) <- c("Address", "Township", "Parcel", "SaleDate", "Costs");
> rownames(tbl) <- NULL
> v <- gregexpr("( aka )|( AKA )",tbl$Address)
> s <-sapply(v, function(x) max(unlist(x)))
> tbl$Address <- substring(tbl$Address, ifelse(s== -1, 0, s+4), 10000)
> tbl$Cost <- gsub(',', '', tbl$Costs)
> temp <- strsplit(tbl$Cost, "\\$")
> temp <- do.call(rbind, temp)  # create a matrix
> mode(temp) <- 'numeric'
> tbl$Debt <- round(temp[, 2]/1000,2)
> tbl$Court <- round(temp[, 3]/1000,2)
> z <- data.frame(substr(tbl$SaleDate,regexpr("[A-Za-z]", tbl$SaleDate),
> regexpr("[0-9]", tbl$SaleDate,)-1)) ; names(z) <- "Action"
> y <- data.frame(substr(tbl$SaleDate,regexpr("[0-9]", tbl$SaleDate),2011)) ;
> names(y) <- "ActionDate"
> tbl <-cbind(tbl[, c(1,2,3,7,8)],z,y)
> new.add <- paste(tbl$Address,"&citystatezip=",tbl$Township,"%2C+PA", sep='')
> new.add <- sub("^( )+","", new.add)
> new.add <-data.frame(gsub("( )+",'+', new.add)); names(new.add) <-
> "ParseAddress"
> hm <- function(x) {
>  url.zill
> <-paste("http://www.zillow.com/webservice/GetDeepSearchResults.htm?zws-id=X1-ZWz1bup03e49vv_5kvb6&address=",x,
> sep="")
>  ############## problem line is next #################################
>  zdoc <-xmlTreeParse(url.zill, useInternalNode=TRUE, isURL=TRUE)
>  ############# problem line above  ##################################
>  f$zpid <- sapply(getNodeSet(zdoc, "//result/zpid"), xmlValue)
>  f$zest.low <-sapply(getNodeSet(zdoc, "//valuationRange/low"), xmlValue)
>  f$zest <- sapply(getNodeSet(zdoc, "//zestimate/amount"), xmlValue)
>  rm(zdoc)
>  return(f)
> }
> j <-sapply(new.add, FUN=hm)
> print(zest)
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Stuck-can-t-get-sapply-and-xmlTreeParse-working-tp3644894p3644894.html
> Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
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>



-- 
Jim Holtman
Data Munger Guru

What is the problem that you are trying to solve?