Overview -------- This tool can: - screenscrape the commodities trading screen - produce the results as a tab separated values file - upload the results to PCTB To run it, change to this directory, type `make', and then: ./ypp-commodities --upload to upload to the PCTB server. Currently we use pctb.ilk.org, the testing instance of the PCTB database, pending approval from the operators of the main server. Or, for example, for a tab-separated values dump: ./ypp-commodities --tsv >commods.tsv While it is capturing the screenshots, do not move the mouse or use the keyboard. Keyboard focus must stay in the YPP client window. Command-line options -------------------- Setting the operation mode: --find-window-only Just check that we can find the YPP client window. --screenshot-only Page through and take screenshots, do not OCR --analyse-only | --same Process previously taken screenshots --everything (default) Take screenshots and process them Options to vary the processing: --single-page One screenful, no paging - results will be incomplete --quiet Suppress progress messages --screenshot-file F Store or read screenshots in F rather than #pages#.pnm --window-id ID Specified X window is the YPP client - do not search --edit-charset Enable character set editing. See README.dictionary. --no-edit-charset Do not edit charset even if #local-char*#.txt exists. --find-island Find and print the ocean and island. Suppresses OCR and output unless used with result processing option. --test-servers Set default servers to be the test servers, not the real live ones (doesn't affect explicit settings). Controlling what happens to the results - only one at a time: --upload (default) Upload to the PCTB server --tsv Print data as clean tab-separated-values file --raw-tsv Dump the raw (not deduped, unsorted) OCR'd data --best-prices Print best buy and sell price for each commodity --arbitrage Print arbitrage opportunities Privacy options, which control conversations with the dictionary server: --dict-local-only * Do not talk to the server even to fetch new dictionary. --dict-read-only * Only fetch new dictionary, do not submit new entries. --dict-anon Don't quote pirate name if submitting entries. --dict-submit Submit entries quoting my pirate name. (default) Please do not use options marked * with --upload. See README.privacy. Options to override which servers we talk to: --pctb-server HOST|URL Talk to the PCTB server at HOST or URL. --dict-submit-url URL Submit dictionary entries with HTTP POST under URL. --dict-update-from SRC Fetch updated master dictionary with rsync from SRC. Or set the environment variables YPPSC_PCTB{_PCTB, _DICT_UPDATE, _DICT_SUBMIT} Installation requirements ------------------------- This program has quite a few dependencies: Package (Debian etch) - For building, C compiler and build environment build-essential - pnm library, including dev files for building libnetpbm10-dev - pnm command line utilities for image manipulation netpbm - X11 libraries, including dev files for building libx11-dev - XTEST library, including dev files for building libxtst-dev - Perl-compatible regexp library, including dev files libpcre3-dev - Tk interpreter /usr/bin/wish tk8.4 - Perl module XML::Parser libxml-parser-perl - Perl module JSON::Parser libjson-perl - XTEST extension in the X server (part of X package) - Perl interpreter and basic modules perl (usu.installed) On other Linux distros the packages may have different names, but these should be roughly right for Debian and its derivatives. The supplied helper programs dictionary-manager commod-results-processor database-info-fetch must (currently) also be in the current working directory when you run the main ypp-commodities program. The data files (see README.files) are also left in the current working directory. There is notyet any feature to have the data files and helpers be somewhere else. Reporting problems ------------------ If you need to report a bug, for example an inability to recognise, please be sure to remember the exact error message and circumstances. Also, for recognition problems there will probably be a very useful screenshot file called `#pages#.pnm'. This is likely to be very large so don't just email it to me, but if you can put it up on a webpage for me to download that will help. At least keep a copy of it. If the problem is a failure to cope with some particular YPP client display and is reproducible, try running: ./ypp-commodities --raw-tsv --single-page If this reproduces the problem, please email me the screenshot file #pages#.pnm, which will consist only of the single screen, plus the error messasge. I'll then be able to understand what's wrong, hopefully. Privacy ------- The main purpose of this program is to connect to the PCTB server and upload data. It will do that if you run it with --upload. This program will also, by default, talk to the dictionary server I have set up: to download updated image dictionaries, and to upload new dictionary entries which you create with the PCTB client dictionary GUI. This feature is mentioned in and controllable in the GUI itself, so it won't happen without you knowing about it. The uploads will by default mention your ocean and pirate name; if you don't want that, pass the --dict-anon option, or untick the box in the GUI. See README.privacy for full details. - Ian Jackson ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk Aristarchus on the Midnight ocean