Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Encyclopedia of Database Systems pp 1–2Cite as

Screen Scraper

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:

  • 179 Accesses

Synonyms

Data extraction; Screen scraping; Screen wrapper

Definition

A screen scraper is a program which extracts relevant data from the visual user interface of an application. Input data are commonly represented using text-only or graphically enhanced tables, lists, and forms, tailored to a human audience. Scraping is the task of collecting data from its presentation, not directly from its source for lack of access. The scraper output has a structured and machine-readable format, where extracted data are usually annotated with its semantics (metadata), suitable for automatic post-processing. The process can be thought of as reverse-engineering a data store from its presentation, abstracting content from layout. Using this approach, application data are taken from the human-oriented screen output rather than the application’s hidden proprietary data structures.

Key Points

Traditionally, screen scrapers have been used to interface legacy systems residing on old mainframes, which often...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Recommended Reading

  1. Hassan T, Baumgartner R. Intelligent text extraction from PDF documents. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Intelligent Agents, Web Technologies and Internet Commerce; 2005. p. 2–6.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Huynh D, Mazzocchi S, Karger D. Piggy bank: experience the semantic web inside your web browser. In: the Fourth International Semantic Web Conference;2005.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria

    Harald Naumann

Authors
  1. Harald Naumann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Harald Naumann .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Ling Liu

  2. University of Waterloo School of Computer Science, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    M. Tamer Özsu

Section Editor information

  1. Computing Lab., Oxford Univ., Wolfson Building, Parks Road, OX1 3QD, Oxford, UK

    Georg Gottlob

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this entry

Cite this entry

Naumann, H. (2016). Screen Scraper. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_1167-2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_1167-2

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-7993-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Computer SciencesReference Module Computer Science and Engineering

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation