# New to Ruby - Need Help

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-to-ruby-need-help/165567>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [April 15, 2009, 12:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-to-ruby-need-help/165567 "2009-04-15T12:00:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![renegade85](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/7cd45c/32.png) [@renegade85](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/renegade85)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 12:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-to-ruby-need-help/165567/1 "2009-04-15T12:00:28Z")

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Hi

I am currently doing a project that requires me to extract news stories  
from a website and add them to a mysql database.

I downloaded and installed ruby and was thinking on using firebug and  
hpricot to help me along the way.

I am using a windows machine and haven’t got a clue how to start though  
☹ Where do I write the ruby files in windows? Is there anything else I  
will need?

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**Author:** ![renegade85](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/7cd45c/32.png) [@renegade85](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/renegade85)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 1:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-to-ruby-need-help/165567/2 "2009-04-15T13:32:36Z")

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Ren Egade wrote:

> I am currently doing a project that requires me to extract news stories  
> from a website and add them to a mysql database.

This can be quite easy if your database is already in existence and if  
it has a good front end for adding, updating, deleting and saving  
stories. Depending on the frequency of story updates, you can simply  
copy and paste the required portions of the stories and reference them  
appropriately.(should be taken care of by the database developer/ data  
manager)

> I downloaded and installed ruby and was thinking on using firebug and  
> hpricot to help me along the way.  
> So copy and paste is mundane and tiresome and we want the machine to  
> work for us while sipping coffee and drawing a healthy salary. hpricot  
> is a one of the many libraries you can use for screen scraping, while  
> firebug can help you to examine the DOM tree and know what tags to go  
> for

> I am using a windows machine and haven’t got a clue how to start though  
> Am also lost as to why you have been using windows sorry DOS for this  
> long ☹

> ☹ Where do I write the ruby files in windows?  
> There are pretty of places you can write ruby files on DOS. create a  
> folder under your drive or “your Documents”, then use notepad to create  
> your ruby files. make sure they end with a .rb extension. for example  
> test.rb 🙂 Assuming that ruby is installed, you can run your ruby file  
> on the dos prompt e.g.  
> C:/\>ruby myfile.rb

Is there anything else I

> will need?  
> Yes there are a couple of things you may need to know.  
> Instead of using Notepad, edit your files using Notepad++ (it supports  
> syntax highlighting, code folding etc and even macros i think.

if you type irb on your dos command prompt, the interactive ruby  
interpreter wakes up.  
C:/\>irb  
irb(main):001:0\>

use it to you advantage. For more information use this website  
[http://www.google.com](http://www.google.com) to find more about irb or shoot a specific  
question to this helpful mailing list if need be

To really make work easier at the expense of a little more learning.  
Download the Netbeans Ruby editor from this website  
[http://www.netbeans.com](http://www.netbeans.com) It has a full integrated development enviroment  
for ruby, all for free! you can write and run all the code within the  
IDE.

Lastly i assume you know how to write simple computer programs.

ruby supports different frameworks for developing database backed  
websites, for example merb, nitro, camping, rails, sinatra etc. rails is  
the most well known and has a lot of documentation([www.rubyonrails.com](http://www.rubyonrails.com))  
use one of these existing frameworks depending on your needs and  
specification and level of expertise and support in your company to  
build a database front end for your project. The respective screen  
scrapping libraries have good documentation on how to use them and how  
to integrate them with rails or merb or whatever you choose to use.

if things are too elephant with ruby switch to python and django or to  
php and mysql. they too can solve your problem. 🙂

All the best!  
George

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![renegade85](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/7cd45c/32.png) [@renegade85](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/renegade85)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 3:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-to-ruby-need-help/165567/3 "2009-04-15T15:01:15Z")

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Thanks George G. 🙂

That info was very helpful 😃

Was just doing some ruby tutorials there and i’m finding my way about ok  
🙂

Still not sure how to use hpricot though 😕