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| Thread ID: 61680 | 2005-09-13 03:50:00 | Download Statutes as PDF? | Ash M (46) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 388093 | 2005-09-14 22:44:00 | Nope. Even with a paid service, all I can get is Word or HTML pieces of statutes. | Winston001 (3612) | ||
| 388094 | 2005-09-15 06:00:00 | And ignorance of the law is no defence. ;) (Unless you're a police officer). Has anyone tried pointing a spider at the site? It might struggle because the looks as if the pages are dynamically generated from a database. But there must be a way. |
Graham L (2) | ||
| 388095 | 2005-09-15 11:30:00 | I suspect arachniphobia reigns. :D But seriously Graham, I know nothing about spiders, so can you tell us more? How would a spider click on each section link in a statute and how would it know where to stop? |
Winston001 (3612) | ||
| 388096 | 2005-09-15 12:31:00 | Before anyone decides to try scraping the www.legislation.govt.co.nz site you should give some thought to the fact that the site's webmaster just might be reading this thread. | Mackin_NZ (6958) | ||
| 388097 | 2005-09-16 00:28:00 | So using a spider is illegal? I honestly don't know. | Winston001 (3612) | ||
| 388098 | 2005-09-16 04:05:00 | Of course they are legal. Google use "millions" of them, all the time. So do Microsoft, and all the other search sites. They can be a nuisance to web sites, because if too enthusiastic they can bring a site to a grinding stop. They are much quicker on the button than human users. I hope the webmaster is looking. "Please Mr Webmaster, format it all up as PDFs, and make a nice "downloads" dircetory for those who want to read them offline". Winston, they just look at the index pages, and request everything. They can reproduce the original structure. It's fairly easy with static HTML sites. I've never had a good look at them, but I imagine its a bit trickier with the dynamically generated pages using PHP, etc, etc. But it's obviously still possible because Google and the other search sites are still working. ;) |
Graham L (2) | ||
| 388099 | 2005-09-16 05:08:00 | "site:legislation.govt.nz" to Google shows that spiders can work on that site. :D | Graham L (2) | ||
| 388100 | 2005-09-17 12:22:00 | Oh those sort of spiders. I'm aware of them although I though the current term was "'bots". Thanks for the clarification. And I don't see the information on statutes being available as PDF very soon. Buying the statutes is the norm and giving statutes away free - except a miserly HTML piece by piece, isn't likely. |
Winston001 (3612) | ||
| 388101 | 2005-09-18 02:52:00 | It was alright to pay the Government Printer for printed copies of the Acts. It cost money to do the typesetting, printing and binding. I can't see any reason why they can't make them available free in computer readable form. | Graham L (2) | ||
| 388102 | 2005-09-18 03:00:00 | Okay what about printed copies? Anyone know where I can purchase those? | Ash M (46) | ||
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