Monday, 4 July 2016

How to scrape data from a google map (in flash)?


I've contacted the author of this NYC homicide map from the NY Times several times to see if he could send me a spreadsheet of information the data is based off of, but I have not had any response (for a very long time).


Is there anyway I could scrap the data from the google map directly? I downloaded the swf file and converted to xml, but even within there I can not tell where the information is I want. Here is the zipped up file of the converted xml.


I'm hopeing someone with more knowledge of online mapping can quickly tell me if this possible or not (or where I should be looking in the xml file).




Answer



Quickly glancing at the page in Firebug and looking at the network calls, you can see where they are pulling the data from. Seems to be a couple of XML files, namely:


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/xml/map_feed_victims.txt?c=2182


and


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/xml/map_feed_incidents.txt?c=2182


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