WinAgent: A System for Creating and Executing Personal Information Assistants Using a Web Browser

摘要

WinAgent is a software system for creating and executing Personal Information Assistants (PIAs). These are software robots that can locate and extract targeted data buried deep within a web site. They do so by automatically navigating to relevant sites, locating the correct Web pages (which can be either directly accessed by traversing appropriate links or by filling out HTML forms), and extracting, structuring, and organizing data of interest from these pages into XML. The primary thrust of WinAgent technology effort was to make these tools easy-to-use by users who are not necessarily trained in computing. In particular users create and execute PIAs through a Web Browser.