What Is Screen Scraping and How Does It Work?

Screen scraping is a data collecting technique usually used to copy information that shows on a digital display so it can be used for another purpose. In this article, we will introduce the process of screen scraping and how a screen scraper works.

Screen Scraping

Normally associated with the programmatic collection of visual data from a source, screen scraping usually refers to the practice of reading text data from a computer display terminal’s screen.

As the method of collecting screen display data from one application and translating it so that another application is able to display it, screen scraping is normally done to capture visual data from a legacy application in order to display it using a more modern user interface.

Why is screen scraping usually used for transferring data?

“Under normal circumstances, a legacy application is either replaced by a new program or brought up to date by rewriting the source code. In some cases, it is desirable to continue using a legacy application but the lack of availability of source code, programmers, or documentation makes it impossible to rewrite or update the application. In such a case, the only way to continue using the legacy application may be to write screen scraping software to translate it into a…