How to read a table from an url?

Hi, I'd need some help. How is it possible to read a table from an url?

The following sequence allows constructing a URL object, opening a URL connection, setting up a buffered stream reader, and reading lines (line by line):

url = java.net.URL('http://www.mathworks.com')
is = openStream(url);
isr = java.io.InputStreamReader(is);
br = java.io.BufferedReader(isr);
s = char(readLine(br)); % can be repeated

I think bufferedReader is only appropriate to read contents row by row. In case the webpage contains a table, this code works, but does not read all the elements of the table, i.e. tbody

Example (java contents)
<div class="table-responsive no-padding-top"> : start of table, displayed in Matlab (e.g. command window)
<table width=... > : table formatting, displayed in Matlab
<thead>: start of table header, displayed in Matlab
<tr>: entire row related to table header, displayed in Matlab
<th> ... </th>: 1st element of header, displayed in Matlab
<th> ... </th>: 2nd element of header, displayed in Matlab
...
</tr>, displayed in Matlab
</thead>: end of header/description of column names, displayed in Matlab
<tbody>: full table with its contents, "<tbody>" displayed in Matlab
<tr>: 1st row of table, *not displayed* in Matlab
<td>...</td>: 1st cell of 1st row, *not displayed* in Matlab
<td>...</td>: 2nd cell of 1st row, *not displayed* in Matlab
</tr>: end of 1st row, *not displayed* in Matlab
<tr>: 2nd row of table, *not displayed* in Matlab
<td>...</td>: 1st cell of 1st row, *not displayed* in Matlab
<td>...</td>: 2nd cell of 1st row, *not displayed* in Matlab
</tr>: end of 2nd row, *not displayed* in Matlab
</tbody>: end of table contents, "</tbody>" displayed in Matlab
</table>: end of table object, displayed in Matlab

How can we read the details behind a table body (tbody)?

Many thanks for your support!

Thomas

Answer 1

[Sid Jhaveri]

1) You can try using the " webread " function.

2) You can also refer to the following links:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/34968-htmltabletocell

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/29642-get-html-table-data-into-matlab-via-urlread-and-without-builtin-browser

http://blogs.mathworks.com/pick/2010/08/20/get-html-table-data-into-matlab/

[tom3w]

The webread function works pretty well. Thank you Sid for your suggestions. Kr, Thomas

Answer 2

[Toshiaki Takeuchi]

You can use readtable https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/readtable.html

url = "https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/text-files.html";
T = readtable(url,TableSelector="//TABLE[contains(.,'readtable')]", ...
    ReadVariableNames=false)

T = 4×2 table
          Var1                             Var2                    
    ________________    ___________________________________________

    "readtable"         "Create table from file"                   
    "writetable"        "Write table to file"                      
    "readtimetable"     "Create timetable from file (Since R2019a)"
    "writetimetable"    "Write timetable to file (Since R2019a)"