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https://books.toscrape.com/ £ sign issue...

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Posted on by UK_Mike

Hi All,

Really recommend this website for practicing scraping / excel etc. https://books.toscrape.com

I remember automating this site with Uipath a year or so ago so just got round to doing it with PAD, had the same issue with Uipath. Is there some artifact before the £ sign or is it just a case of a number stored as text when I scrape the value then write into excel.

The artifact, when I click in the formula bar before the £ sign and press delete even though theres nothing to delete it coverts it to currency from general plus aligns it to the right.

I can quite easily sort it within Excel using automated formulas etc but was wondering if it could be done before writing the data to Excel, for future reference etc.

Automation works perfectly, opens each books individual url, scrapes its Url/Title/ID and lastly its cost, onto the next url etc.

Ive used the "Extract data from webpage" action...

Thanks, Mike.

Screenshot 2022-01-11 203708.png

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Benny_1857 124 on at

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Not sure what outcome you need. For my understanding, you want to get the cost without pounds sign.
But whether you need the outcome to be text or number I am not sure.
You could use the function in text which called Recoginze Entities In Text. It could directly transfrom the text into number. If you finnally need text, just add one step transfer number to text.

For a good question, you'd better post the pics which you get and which you want. ^_^

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UK_Mike on at

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Hi,
No I wanted it as a number, with or without the £sign to then perform calcs etc.
Looking on the Uipath forums everybody else had the same issue, seems the issue is the site holds the number as a text value. As I said its easily sorted after writing it to Excel.

Thanks

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Benny_1857 124 on at

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Hi，
Yes, as a £sign started, it will judge as a text. The site should seperate the £sign with the number and then you can pick up number only. Currently, Recoginze Entities In Text for number could help you to solve it. ^_^

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UK_Mike on at

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Hi,
I did see some docs re importing data from a website where this issue can occur.
But if I manually input £500 into a general cell it automatically converts to currency ?
Ive been meaning to try that recognise entities in text, on my todo list lol.

Thanks

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Benny_1857 124 on at

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Sorry, I try to understand your request.
So you request a way that if you imput 500 into the cell mannually, it will automatically converts to 500.00 or £500.00
Am I right?

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UK_Mike on at

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No my friend.
In an Excel cell, thats already formatted as general, I input " £500 " including the £sign.
Excel immediately converts that cell to currency.
However, when this £500 is pulled from a website its pasted as text, hence the formatting issue.
Its fine ive sorted it, was just wondering why is all...

Thanks

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Benny_1857 124 on at

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I think becasue sometime you input £500, the website need to show £500.00,
so once price upload to website, it transfer number to text for adding ".00"
After you pick up price from web again, it is text.
I try to pick up data from your website and write into excel, they are text.
Normally, I solve it by Power Query after all data picked, launch the excel, run a PQ.
Because it waste too much time for PAD to recognize the text into number one by one.
The more data you have the more time you save by PQ.

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UK_Mike on at

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Agreed, I use PQ if i can avoid PDA, quicker and never fails.
Cheers Benny.

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