Dell Scraper

Due to failings in the past, our inventory system is in need of a revamp as it is missing both systems and information as part of the revamp we decided to scrap everything we new and reinventroy everything. We use a lot of dell systems and I figured that as we had collected the service tags of a number of systems we could get the info about that system from the dell site. I wrote a quick python script to take a list of service tags and output the system info as a csv file in the format “tag, shipdate, SysType, Ram, HDD, Support”.

E.g.

"4GXCB1H","2008-03-29","Latitude D430","2GB","80GB","3Y NBD INTERNATIONAL (NEXT BUSINESS DAY);UPG TO 4Y NBD INTERNATIONAL (NEXT BUSINE"

Place a text file called “taglist.txt” in the same directory as the script with the dell service tags listed 1 per line. When the script is done the data will be in the file called “SystemList.txt”.


4GXCB1H
5GXAB1H

#!/usr/bin/python
#
# Copyright 2009 Ryan McLean 
#
# dellscraper.py
#
# Dell Warranty Scraper

###Imports
from urllib2 import Request, urlopen, URLError
import datetime, re, sys, os, string

def processHTML(rawhtml):
  #Grab Shipdate
  res = re.search('Ship\sDate:(\d\d/\d\d/\d\d\d\d)', rawhtml, re.IGNORECASE)
  shipdate = res.group(1)

  #Grab System Type
  res = re.search('System\sType:(.*?)', rawhtml, re.IGNORECASE)
  SysType = res.group(1)

  #Breakdown
  bd1 = re.search('Part Description(.*)', rawhtml, re.IGNORECASE)
  table = bd1.group(1)
  table = re.sub('','',table)
  table = re.sub('.*?|','',table)
  table = re.sub('','',table)
  table = re.sub('<.*?>', 'XXX', table)
  table = re.sub('X{2,}', '', table)

  #Get RAM
  res = re.search('MEMORY\s:\s(\d+[M|G]B).*?',table)
  Ram = res.group(1)

  #Get HDD
  res = re.search('.*?(\d+GB).*?',table)
  HDD = res.group(1)

  #Get Support Details
  Support = []
  res = re.search('(\dY[R]?\s.*?)',table)
  if (res):
    Support.append(res.group(1))

  res = ""

  res = re.search('(UPG\sTO\s\dY[R]?\s.*?)',table)
  if (res):
    Support.append(res.group(1))

  res = ""

  res = re.search('(\dY[R]?\sPRO.*?)',table)
  if (res):
    Support.append(res.group(1))

  return shipdate, SysType, Support, Ram, HDD

#fileI/O
def readfile(inFile):
  if os.path.isfile(inFile) == False:
    exit()

  thisfile = open(inFile, 'r')

  tags = []
  taga = tags.append
  for line in thisfile.readlines():
    if line.strip(): # check for empty lines
      if line[-1] == '\n':
        taga(line[0:-1]) # If line ends in line break remove it
      else:
        taga(line)
  thisfile.close()
  return tags

def writefile(outfile, outline):
  thisfile = open(outfile, 'a')
  thisfile.write(outline + "\n")
  thisfile.close()

#format data and write
def fdata(tag, shipdate, SysType, Support, Ram, HDD):
  d,m,y = shipdate.split('/')
  shipdate = y + '-' + m + '-' + d

  ts = ''
  for s in Support:
    ts = ts + ';' + s
  ts = re.sub('^;','',ts)
  Support = ts

  if re.match('\d\d\d\dMB',Ram):
    res = re.search('(\d)\d\d\dMB',Ram)
    Ram = res.group(1) + "GB"

  outstr = '"' + tag + '","' + shipdate + '","' + SysType + '","' + Ram + '","' + HDD + '","' + Support + '"'

  return outstr

###  MAIN ###

url = 'http://support.euro.dell.com/support/topics/topic.aspx/emea/shared/support/my_systems_info/en/details?c=uk&cs=RC1050265&l=en&s=bsd&~ck=anavml&~tab=2&~wsf=tabs&servicetag='

filename = 'taglist.txt'
tags = readfile(filename)

for tag in tags:
  try:
    req = Request(url + tag)
    response = urlopen(req)
    rawhtml = response.read()
  except URLError, e:
    if hasattr(e, 'reason'):
      print 'We failed to reach a server.'
      print 'Reason: ', e.reason
    elif hasattr(e, 'code'):
      print 'The server couldn\'t fulfill the request.'
      print 'Error code: ', e.code
    else:
      shipdate, SysType, Support, Ram, HDD = processHTML(rawhtml)
      outstr = fdata(tag, shipdate, SysType, Support, Ram, HDD)
      writefile("./SystemList.txt", outstr)