Web Information Extraction and Conversion for Mashup

Abstract

The existing Mashup Platform can only exploit the web service providing APIs, which limits the application scope of Mashup platform. This paper analyzes the HTTP protocol and related technologies, and proposes a semi-automated method for Web information extraction and conversion: the WebAPI system. In WebAPI, users firstly mark pages by hand with browser plug-ins, and then the proxy server grabs the HTTP message flow to obtain the parameters needed. The conversion module of WebAPI analyzes the parameters to create the corresponding Web Service APIs so that Mashup applications can utilize the general Web Service by invoking these interfaces. In this indirect manner, the range of resources that Mashup platforms can utilize is extensively expanded.