screen scraper
screen scraper
(tool)Typically, the screen scraper interacts with terminal emulation software to generate input to and process outputfrom the "host" system through terminal screens. Screenscrapers are advantageous when modifications to the hostsystem are undesireable, when it is desireable to make use ofthe existing business and data integrity logic on the host,and when no other (peer-to-peer) interface method isavailable.
Some products employ screen scraping combined with additionalfunctionality which provides a DBMS-like or otherspecialised interface to the host. The host system is oftencalled a "legacy system" because it usually the older of thesystems involved and based on older technology.
screen scraper
(1) Software that automatically extracts and saves data from interactive screens without user intervention. This type of screen scraper was used primarily to capture data displayed on earlier character-based terminals. See character based.(2) Software that automatically extracts data from HTML pages or other documents that are normally viewed interactively (see screen scraping).
(3) Also called "frontware," this screen scraper added a graphical user interface (GUI) to earlier character-based mainframe and minicomputer applications. The software ran in the user's computer, which connected to the mainframe or mini via the network or terminal emulation. See terminal emulation.