Best practice for retrieving data? SQL Database vs HTML parsing

Question

I'm developing an app that displays a list of products that are in stock from various electronics websites. I have two methods in mind for accomplishing this task.

• Create a C# application that parses the html from the various websites and updates a SQL table, use a php script to get data from the SQL table, display it in JSON format, and parse the JSON with the iPhone
• Use the iPhone to parse html from each website, eliminating the need for a server and SQL database

I don't know all the pros and cons for each method, but I do know that hosting a web server with a SQL database costs money. However, using the iPhone to parse html from over 40 websites could be very slow, and use a lot of data.

Which one is the best method for creating an app like this? Am I even on the right track?

Thanks, Miles

Answer 1

I would prefer the web service approach in which I would parse it on my own server and then serve a JSON representation to iPhone.

Why?

Because when something changes on the html you won't need to wait for Apple to confirm your app change, and user will not need to update his app.

Answer 2

Your First Option is much prefered with little change. You Don't Need C# TO parse the HTML as PHP has all options you need. IT can save data in Database and similary can output in your desired format.

As per the Cost, using Iphone may cost you more with data usage(Operator service Charges) as compare to web server hosting with PHP & mysql. Further you can have already optimised facilities of HTML parsing in own server with tendency to meet all complexities served on WEB.