In the data-driven era, web crawlers have become a necessary tool for many businesses to gather market intelligence, competitive analysis, and consumer behavior. Traditionally, web crawlers have been seen as the professional domain of programmers, often using programming languages such as Python and JavaScript to write complex crawler programs.
This can seem too difficult and intimidating for people without a programming background. However, with the advancement of tools and technology, today’s data collection is no longer just the preserve of programmers – even if you are just a daily Excel user, or even a novice programmer, you can use Excel’s VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) feature to implement web crawling. And all of this can be easily done with the assistance of ChatGPT.
1. Capture the data of the raw material commodity market table
Let’s take the data capture of raw material commodity market as an example. Let’s say you need to track the price changes of certain raw materials on a regular basis for further market analysis or reporting. However, each time you manually open a web page, copy the data, and paste it into Excel, the process is cumbersome and error-prone. At this point, Excel’s VBA capabilities make it easy to automate this process. VBA is Excel’s built-in programming language that allows you to automate repetitive tasks, such as taking data from a web page and inserting it directly into an Excel sheet, greatly improving efficiency and reducing the likelihood of errors.
2. Generate VBA code with ChatGPT
For those who are not very familiar with programming, writing VBA code can still be a challenging task. But with ChatGPT, this dilemma can be solved. You only need to briefly describe your needs, such as: “I want to scrape the price data of raw materials from this website and automatically paste this data into an Excel spreadsheet”, and ChatGPT will automatically generate the corresponding VBA code based on your description.
This code can be used directly in Excel without the need for you to do additional coding learning. For example, in this scenario, we describe to ChatGPT the source of the data we need to scrape (e.g., the raw material commodity quote table on the StockQ website) and ask that the data be automatically pasted into an Excel sheet. ChatGPT generates a piece of VBA code that automatically opens a website, scrapes data from a table, and organizes it into a designated Excel sheet.
3. Fine-tune VBA code parameters
Once you have the code, you can fine-tune it as you see fit. For example, you can set an automatic crawl interval, specify the data fields that need to be scraped, or define how the data will be presented after crawling. These can all be adjusted in the VBA editor to make the process more suitable for your business needs.
Excel’s VBA editor interface is simple and easy to use, allowing users to run and adjust code directly in a worksheet and see the results in real-time. For newbies, such a tool provides enough flexibility and maneuverability that you can make the necessary adjustments at any time, without the need for in-depth programming knowledge.
4. Use Excel to achieve web crawler effects
Once the code is set up and running, you’ll find that Excel does the web crawler’s job automatically. This means that you no longer have to manually process the data, and all the information you need is automatically and neatly arranged in your Excel spreadsheet. What’s more, such automated processes can be set up to be executed on a regular basis, such as daily, weekly, or even monthly, automatically updating the latest market data according to your needs.
As shown in the figure, after completing the crawler, Excel will pop up a prompt message to let you know that the data scraping has been completed, and organize it and place it in the specified worksheet. This automation not only improves productivity, but also ensures that your data is up-to-date and accurate, powering your analysis.
The powerful combination of Excel and VBA makes web crawlers no longer the preserve of programmers. With the help of ChatGPT, program novices can also quickly master this technology and realize their own customized data scraping needs. Not only does this save you a lot of time and effort, but it also allows you to focus on data analysis and decision-making, so you can get a head start on the competition. In the future, as the demand for data continues to grow, such technology will be a powerful assistant in your work, helping you solve various data challenges with ease.
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