E-commerce website building for travel industry

Client Overview
Our client is a web search company based in Sweden that has its own vertical search engine and many suppliers from all over the world. Its search engine can scrape special data from suppliers who have allowed access to interact with them, such as hotels, flights, and cars, to the users, and it has proven to be very useful and efficient.

Requirement
Because the client's suppliers come from so many different countries, their web services and interface servers are quite varied. Therefore, they need someone who has the ability and the sense of responsibility to accomplish these scraping tasks.

Technology Details
The client’s search engine is implemented by Perl. Perl is the language for people who want to get things done. It started as a tool for UNIX system administrators who needed something powerful for small tasks.  Since then, Perl has blossomed into a full-featured programming language used for web programming, database manipulation, XML processing, and system administration on practically all platforms, while remaining the favorite tool for the small daily tasks for which it was designed.

In the field of China Outsourcing Services, we mainly use Java or C++ to provide solutions, build websites, and complete other applications etc. Therefore, Perl is both an opportunity and a challenge for us. The truth is that knowing and understanding are two different aspects of any customer’s requirements.

In keeping with our attitude toward customers, we not only do our best to understand customer requirements, but also think through any and all possibilities that can help our customers improve their business interests. This is the essence of our industry.  We care about the thoughts and intentions of our customers.

Features
1 Construct URL request
Every supplier has their own specification for URL requests. With a single request, we need to construct only one URL address to track the supplier's order and send it to their server. If the supplier does not have special documents, we need to try to make this happen on our own. These situations test our endurance.

However, the importance of constructing URL requests goes without saying. If the requested URL is not obtained, further operations cannot proceed. All parameters are placed on Hash Structure as needed, and are then sent using CGI, which is provided by Perl.

Multi-request suppliers are a little tough: we have to send several URL requests to get the data we want. If there is some interface or development spec, everything is fine. If not, the solution depends on our creativity. Fortunately, we are always able to manage! Multi-requests not only test our Perl programming ability, but also our action and insight.  Additionally, this further enhances our understanding of Perl. It is a very useful and practical language that demands time and energy to learn.

2 Parse response data
"There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's eyes."

Plain text, HTML data, XML data, or some other unknown data structures are all possible responses that will be obtained.  Perl has many features that set it apart from other languages. Of all those features, one of the most important is its strong support for regular expressions. These allow fast, flexible, and reliable string handling: It is a very powerful weapon.

However, that power comes at a price. Regular expressions are tiny programs written in their own special language and built within Perl. Yes, we have to learn another programming language.

2.1 A casual stroll across the regex (Regular expressions) landscape
Regular expressions are the key to powerful, flexible, and efficient text processing. Regular expressions feature a general pattern notation, almost like a miniature programming language.  With additional support provided by the particular tool being used, regular expressions can add, remove, isolate, and generally fold, spindle, and mutilate all kinds of text and data.

2.2"There is a difference between playing a musical piece well and making music"
There is a difference between knowing about regular expressions and really understanding them.  We can succeed in obtaining useful parse response data, but in ways that are totally different and which are the first steps to really understanding the process.

These include

• How to maintain multiple levels of simultaneously interacting meta characters
• How to balance correctness and efficiency
• Understanding some useful features such as meta sequences, back references, and look around.
• How to simulate Named Capture using Perl.

Mastering Regular Expressions greatly benefits us.  We can also use it in other languages.

3 Add needed data to client's vertical search engine and show them to users.
In this step, all the data structures are defined by our client. Every special service needs different data.  However, to some extent, this is a minor detail.  All we care about are the logic and arithmetic, which are main areas of our expertise. 

Because the client's suppliers come from so many different countries, their web services and interface servers are quite varied. Therefore, they need someone who has the ability and the sense of responsibility to accomplish these scraping tasks.

Team management
In the IT field, we have experienced architects and programmers. They have rich experience and deep understanding of the procedures involved with software design and project management, and they have the ability to develop applications rapidly and capably.

Within the working environment, we are able to provide a first-rate office space and working environment which will not only help to raise the productivity of employees, but also, and most crucially, to improve the company's overall competitiveness.

In the aspect of project management, the top-ranking professional managers are on our team, and we share project management and team building experience. In addition, our adoption of CMMi 5 certification clearly shows our high level of capability

Summary
We maintain a very good relationship with our client and continue to prove all aspects of our ability. However, this is not just a happy ending; it is a beginning of our firm's life journey. Therefore, the more we hone our abilities, the more we will be able to provide the best outsourcing services in China.

USE Solution
USE is one of the best outsourcing service companies in China. Right from the start, we leave a good impression on clients with our efficient management, our technological ability and our positive, diligent work ethic.

At first, clients give us some basic supplier information and specs to test our programming capabilities and our ability to build working environments. These tasks have been finished quickly and successfully. At present, the client has shown great admiration for our working quality and speed, as nobody else can deal with these tasks as fast as USE. We consistently receive high praise from our clients.

Through a series of commercial negotiations, our cooperative relations have become steadier. We are very pleased with this and we look forward to the sustained development of these relations.