CraigslistMinion

A minion to hunt Craigslist for you... First come, first serve means knowing puts you ahead of the curve!

Sample Code

#!/usr/bin/ksh

Quick little filter to hunt for items that match a given pattern on

good ole craigslist. Keeps track of whats been seen, and emails along

anything new to the provided address. Scan frequency is set by the

controller, aka, cron.

by James 'Anjin' Hutchinson (c) 2008

Search Pattern

QUERY="kayak"

Email to send to

EMAIL="[email protected]"

History File

HISTORY="kayak.urls"

Craigslist URL

CRAIGSLIST="http://seattle.craigslist.org"

Search postfix for URL

SEARCH="/search/sss?query="

If first run, build the history file but send no email

RUN_ONCE="0" if [ ! -f ${HISTORY} ] then RUN_ONCE="1" echo "No history file! Building history without sending alerts." fi

Primary filter

GET ${CRAIGSLIST}${SEARCH}${QUERY} | gawk ' BEGIN { while( getline tstr < "'${HISTORY}'" > 0 ) { history[tstr] = tstr ; } RS="

" ;

	} 
{ 
	month = $1 ;
	day = $2 ;
	split( $0, tary, "\<" ) ;
	split( tary[2], ttary, "\>" ) ;
	split( ttary[1], tttary, "\"" ) ;
	url = tttary[2] ;
	tcnt = split( ttary[2], ttttary, " - " ) ;
	desc = ttttary[1] ;
	for( i=2 ; i<tcnt ; i++ ) {
		desc = sprintf("%s %s",	desc, ttttary[i] ) ;
		}
	if( tcnt > 1 ) {
		price = ttttary[tcnt] ;
		}
	else {
		price = "No Price" ;
		}
	if( history[ url ] == "" ) {
		history[ url ] = url ;
		if( "'${RUN_ONCE}'" == "0" ) {
			syscmd = sprintf("echo \"%s%s \\%s '${CRAIGSLIST}'%s %s\" | \
				mailx -s \"'${QUERY}'\" '${EMAIL}'\n",
				month, day, price, url, desc )
			printf syscmd ;
			system(syscmd) ;
			close(syscmd) ;
			}
		printf "%s\n",url >> "'${HISTORY}'" ;
		}
	}' 2> /dev/null