CODEWITHSUNDEEP
htmlpolling
CodeFusionMobile
CodeFusionMobile

Reputation: 15130

How to poll simple website for updates?

I have a professor who randomly updates his website with homework due tomorrow and seems to expect us to check it every hour.

This sounds like a job for a program.

His website is simple and entirely html, not even any javascript. How could I programatically detect any changes/updates to his website?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 2396

Answers (3)

D'Arcy Rittich
D'Arcy Rittich

Reputation: 171559

Check the Last-Modified Response header.

Upvotes: 5

hvgotcodes
hvgotcodes

Reputation: 120308

setup a cron job to periodically wget or curl the URL, then grep for relevant text, then send yourself an email if interesting results are found...

Upvotes: 1

cherouvim
cherouvim

Reputation: 31928

Fetch and md5 the content of each page. Then store and compare with previous values. Note that this is sensitive down to the character level.

Alternativelly, setup a Google Alert for site:your-professors-website.com and have the updates delivered to your email or via rss.

Upvotes: 2

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