iOS Using IPhone to Search Website - Beginner

[bradnet]

Hi Guys

I need a little advice; i'm looking at making my own IPhone app which is going to be a more convenient way of searching a particular website which i think uses a mysql server for there products. The website i will be searching doesn't know that i am making an application for them just yet as i'd like to present it once it's complete so i can't check accurately what they have but i think it's sql.

My problem is that i need to know how to retrieve product options from the server and populate an array or dictionary on the iphone so that the user can filter through these to shorten the list of products. I believe the best way would be to download each of the option lists to choose from one at a time until they reach the 4th option and it just loads the first 25 results in to the main window to view and then buttons at the top to choose to filter further.

i.e.
Options to Filter
Option1 ->Name
Option2 ->Model
Option3 ->Size
Option4
Option5
Option6
Option7

Each of these options can be filtered to show less products in the final list, but mainly it is just the first 3 or 4 which are mandatory if we didn't complete these there would just be thousands of products to look through and the rest of the options are optional for specific product searches.

Thanks for any help in advance.
Brad

 

[dejo]

Without direct access to the supposed SQL database (which would be done via a web services layer), you can only use what is publicly available, which is probably just HTML and, thus, requiring some kind of parsing.

But I must admit: attempting to make an application for a website without their permission seems foolhardy (with permission, you might be able to better access the content you desire) and possibly a violation of their terms of service.

 

[bradnet]

Thanks for the info, the reason i am trying to produce this application without there knowledge for now is that i want this to become a resale application and if they are aware prior to me finishing it they will probably just say no and try and do there own but if the application is in front of them working they are more likely to just go with it.

Can you let me know what method you might use to access a mysql server on the internet and populate an array with a list of data from that server, as i'll need to populate the option lists one by one as they pass through the application until there results page at the end.

Thanks
Brad

 

[Matthew Yohe]

Pretty sure this violates the SDK and the scraping you're doing is most likely not legal, and what do you mean "go with it"? Buy it from you?

 

[bradnet]

When i say go with it i mean a partnership with them once it is in production but while the idea is still not in production they are more likely to take me out of the loop and start themselves taking me back to the beginning.

But i've had another idea anyway since posting this one which will become the middle man between more than just one site.

thanks
Brad