LHpi

LHpi is LordHelmchen's price import library and sitescripts for Magic Album.

LHpi is a collection of lua scripts to be used by Magic Album, but is not part of Magic Album and thus updated and supported seperately.

Discuss, ask for help and leave feedback at the corresponding Forum Thread.

Contents 1 Sitescripts 1.1 magicuniverse.de 1.2 mtgmintcard.com 1.3 magic.tcgplayer.com PriceGuide 1.4 trader-online.de 2 The LHpi Library 2.1 LHpi.Data 3 Installation and usage 4 Development 4.1 How-to write your sitescript file 4.2 sitescriptTemplate 4.3 dummyMA.lua 4.4 Planned features 4.5 Possible features 4.6 Problems 4.7 Hints for developers 4.7.1 multiple copies ot the same script 4.7.2 procedure of function calls 4.7.3 dropping cards 4.7.4 non-trivial tables 4.8 version history 4.8.1 pre-2.0 4.8.2 LHpi lib 4.8.3 LHpi.Data 4.8.4 magicuniverseDE 4.8.5 mtgmintcard 4.8.6 tcgplayerPriceGuide 4.8.7 trader-onlineDE 4.8.8 sitescriptTemplate 4.8.9 dummyMA 5 License 6 Other scripts

Sitescripts

The sitescripts are the actual price import scripts, written in lua. They use the Magic Album Lua API and the LHpi library to query and parse a website and import the price information into Magic Album. Most of the program logic is contained in the library, so the sitescript needs to hold only site-specific information and a few functions that are not easily generalizable.

In theory, you should not be dependent on a new version once a new set is available: just add new entries to site.sets table in the sitescript. Being easy to update yourself was one of the design goals.

Sitescripts will need to provide

• a table of supported sets with language and url infix fields
• a table of supported languages with url infix field
• a function to build urls
• a function to parse the html raw data into data fields via regular expressions (and the regex itself)
• optionally, they can also provide
  • functions for site specific data manipulation, in case the site has some strange formatting the library does not understand
  • a one-to-one name map for names that differ between the site and Magic Album's database
  • tables to map card names to picture versions, in case the one-to-one map and LHpi's defaults are not sufficient
  • a table with expected card count numbers for LHpi's sanity checks.

magicuniverse.de

LHpi.magicuniverseDE-v2.6.1.lua.zip
Sitescript version	2.6.1
used LHpi version	2.6
updated last on	2014-02-11
size	11.55 KiB

Magic Universe is a German site with German and English cards, priced in €.

This site started it all, since I wanted prices in local currency, and my FLG apparently uses them as price reference.

mtgmintcard.com

LHpi.mtgmintcard-v2.6.1.lua.zip
Sitescript version	2.6.1
uses LHpi version	2.6
updated last on	2014-02-11
size	9.74 KiB

Functionally the same as "MTG Mint Card.lua" by Goblin Hero and Stromglad1.

When I wanted to generalize my script for easy addaption to other sites, this provided me with a good baseline, since I could search MA for cards that my script missed but should have set. Also, the site is easy to querry and parse. They do have a currency chooser, so I started by trying to make a mtgmintcard-Euro script. I failed, but salvaged the wreck for default $ prices.

magic.tcgplayer.com PriceGuide

LHpi.tcgplayerPriceGuide-v2.6.1.lua.zip
Sitescript version	2.6.1
uses LHpi version	2.6
updated last on	2014-02-11
size	12.74 KiB

LHpi.tcgplayerPriceGuide-v2.7.1.1.lua.zip
Sitescript version	2.7.1.1
uses LHpi library version	2.7
uses LHpi.Data version	1
updated last on	2014-02-13
size	13.18 KiB

Tcgplayer Price Guide claims to accumulate prices from 75 online vendors. They are priced in $. Their tables give a high, low and average price; the sitescript contains a variable to select which one of those it should use.
To change the column to import from, open the script in a text editor, find himelo = 3 which should be around line 126 and change it to himelo = 1 for high or himelo = 2 for medium prices. You can have #multiple copies ot the same script
As requested by Golob here.
Also, Promo and most special sets have not been tested yet and are commented out.
Note that cards with multiple versions are averaged in some sets and set to "variant 1"'s price in others, as the source list does not clearly identify the version. Even when it does, it is unclear if the entry without version suffix is meant to be all unspecified or version 1 only. As I wanted to keep this sitescript as basic as possible, I decided against guessing a real variant table and just added expected failcounts.In most cases, "CARD" price is set for all versions and averaged with "CARD (version)" price for given versions now.

trader-online.de

LHpi.trader-onlineDE-v2.6.1.lua.zip
Sitescript version	2.6.1
uses LHpi version	2.6
updated last on	2014-02-11
size	11.98 KiB

Trader Online is a German site with German and English cards, priced in €.

I found this site while looking for Token images, found it to be parseable by sitescript, and decided to use it as a test on how well the library was adapted to support additional sites.

The LHpi Library

LHpi-v2.6.lua.zip
Library version	2.6
Tested with Ma version	1.6.1.321
updated last on	2014-02-11
size	30.33 KiB

LHpi-v2.7.lua.zip
Tested with Ma version	1.6.1.321
updated last on	2014-02-12
size	15.3 KiB

It is not expected to be fast, but as reliable as possible:
It first compares the user requested sets and languages with what the sitescript has available and builds a table of urls to querry, seperated by set.
Then it loops though the sets that are both available and selected:
The raw html data is fetched, parsed and entered into an intermediate table of all prices for the current edition, merging regular and foil prices to minimize calls to ma.SetPrice.
Should the same card (defined by set,card,language,(picture-)version ) be encountered again, it compares the prices. If they are equal, the new price is discarded; if they differ (Yes, magicuniverse.de's database is quirky), it uses the average price. Cards that are suffxed with a condition description are currently disregarded.
Once that cardsetTable is completed (all urls belonging to the set are parsed), it sends the prices to MA. Finally, it compares the count of set prices with the number of cards in the set (or, if given, the expectation given in the sitescript). See #procedure of function calls for details. Logging to a seperate file is now enabbled per default (but still configurable by the variable SAVELOG in the script), since ma.PutFile(file,data,0) behaviour bug was fixed. The log is overwritten on subsequent re-runs of the script.

LHpi.Data

LHpi.Data-v1.lua.zip
Library version	>=2.7
updated last on	2014-02-12
size	20.98 KiB

Since library version 2.7, static set data (number of cards,foilage,variant and foiltweak tables) were moved into a seperate data file that gets loaded by the library on initialization. This will allow to distinguish between code updates (to the library) and set data updates (which are usually needed when a new set is released). Version numbering of the sitescripts will reflect both library and data versions used.

Installation and usage

1. Download at least one sitescript and both the LHpi libray and data file in the version the sitescript uses.
2. Unzip into the "Prices" subdirectory of your Magic Album installation.
3. (recommended, but not yet strictly necessary) Create a subfolder called "lib" under "Prices" and move both library and data file into the subfolder.
4. (optional) If you want to use the SAVEHTML feature, you need to create an empty subdirectory, named like the sitescript without version suffix (for example "Prices\LHpi.magicuniverseDE").
5. (re)start Magic Album and use the sitescript (not the library not the data fille. Step 3 makes this warning obsolete.) from Magic Album's Price Manager dialog.

If something does not happen as expected

• make sure the script is saved utf-8 encoded. It's customary for lua scripts to be saved ANSI encoded, but as MA expects utf input, this is what I considered the most wysiwyg approach to set cards with special characters in their names.
• open the lua file in a text editor and change "VERBOSE = false" to "VERBOSE = true" (line 33). This will make the script provide feedback to help track down any problems (or just to see what it was doing) and also enable additional checks. The logging will be sent to "[MA Folder]\Prices\[scriptname].log".

I'll try to answer any questions you might have. If the script misbehaves please follow the two steps above and attach a copy of the .log to your post.

Development

How-to write your sitescript file

Detailed instructions on the properties and functions to define in your sitescript file can be found at How-To sitescriptTemplate.

sitescriptTemplate

LHpi.sitescriptTemplate-v2.7.1.1.lua.zip
Sitescript version	2.7.1.1
uses LHpi library version	2.7
uses LHpi.Data version	1
updated last on	2014-02-13
size	8.46 KiB

This is just an empty, commented template to help write new sitescripts.

dummyMA.lua

dummyMA-v0.2.zip
version	0.2
updated last on	2013-02-13
size	6.27 KiB

Magic Album API dummy to test and debug LHpi within an IDE (such as eclipse) and without needing Magic Album. Now fixed for backwards compatibility with Lua 5.1.

Planned features

in no particular order

• Promo and special sets for magicuniverseDE,mtgmintcards, tcgplayerPriceguide
  • add all special and promo sets (cardcount,variants,foiltweak) to LHpi.Data
• tweak log : better differentiation of log levels (normal,verbose,debug); rewrite normal-level logentries to be more pleasing to read.
  I'd love to get users' feedback on this: how silent should normal level be; what should not be logged unless in debug mode?
  • string.format all LOG that contain variables (http://www.troubleshooters.com/codecorn/lua/luastring.htm#_String_Formatting)
• to anticipate sites that return "*CARDNAME*REGPRICE*FOILPRICE* instead of "*CARDNAME*PRICE*FOILSTATUS*": have site.ParseHtml return a collection of cards, similar to site.BuildUrl

Possible features

in no particular order

• passing importsets to BuildCardData could sort out the mess that is magicuniverse's promo page, at the cost of lots looping through sets. Should thus be done in site.BCDPlugins
• ideally, most information in LHpi.sets could be read from MA via API getter functions.
• add hardcoded exchange rate for crude currency conversion between parsing and importing.
• handle conflicting prices differently. Is averaging ok, or should the script discard one (which?) of the prices and/or throw an error ? Until further notice, I'm ok with how averaging works.
• import prices from condition-suffixed cards instead of dropping them.
  • patch to accept entries with a condition description if no other entry with better condition is in the table:
    • buildCardData will need to add condition to carddata
    • global conditions{} to define priorities
    • then fillCardsetTable needs a new check before overwriting existing data
• add another sitescript (and adapt library if needed)
• only magicuniverse uses multiple frucs. maybe it's time to revert back to foil=y|n|o and move common|uncommon|rare url building into the sitescriptAfter updating the documentation and site[setid].fruc tables in LHpi.tcgplayerPriceGuide and LHpi.sitescriptTemplate, I think the current implementation works sufficiently well.
• no longer silently assume that fruc is {foil,rare,uncommon,common}Still asuming it, but no longer undocumentedly so :-)

Problems

• can't set the sitescript's name dynammically.

--[[FIXME the dynamic approach myname does not work, ma.GetFile returns nil for its own log :(
do
	--local _s,_e,myname = string.find( ma.GetFile("Magic Album.log"), "Starting Lua script .-([^\\]+%.lua)$" )
	if myname then
		scriptname = myname
	else -- use hardcoded scriptname as fallback
		scriptname = "LHpi.magicuniverseDE-v2.0.lua" -- should always be equal to the scripts filename !
	end
end
--]]

• number of cards in set must be hardcoded into library. An [url=http://www.slightlymagic.net/forum/tracker.php?p=2&t=303 ma.GetCardsInSet( setid,langid,regular|tokens )] would help, but the numbers are easy to hardcode anyways.
• can't use mtgmintcard to get € prices. see [1] for details.
• cards with quotation marks in their name currently confuse the script. Affected cards are
  • “Ach! Hans, Run!” (UNH)
  • Kongming, “Sleeping Dragon” (PTK)
  • Pang Tong, “Young Phoenix” (PTK)
• Can't distinguish between regular and oversized versions of the same card. probably affects all Commander sets.

Hints for developers

Some information that might be useful if you want to write/improve sitescripts. Please add questions related to developing here, so I know what needs to be documented.

multiple copies ot the same script

You can have multiple versions of the same script, but you need to make sure scriptname = "LHpi.SCRIPTNAME-v" .. libver .. ".x.lua" (somewhere around line 75, depending on sitescript) is changed to reflect the script's filename. Otherwise, they will overwrite each other's logfile and html raw data. Of course, this could be intentional, so keep the name identical if that is what you want.

procedure of function calls

MA calls sitescript.ImportPrice
sitescript.Importprice loads the library, then calls LHpi.DoImport
LHpi.DoImport calls LHpi.ProcessUserParams and initializes
LHpi.DoImport calls LHpi.ListSources
 LHpi.ListSources loops through sets,langs,frucs and calls site.BuildUrl
LHpi.DoImport calls LHpi.MainImportCycle
LHpi.MainImportCycle loops through sets,urls and calls LHpi.GetSourceData
 LHpi.GetSourceData loops through matches with site.regex and calls site.ParseHtmlData, then returns sourceTable
LHpi.MainImportCycle loops through sourceTable and calls LHpi.BuildCardData
 LHpi.BuildCardData calls site.BCDpluginPre and site.BCDpluginPost and returns newcard
 LHpi.MainImportCycle calls LHpi.FillCardsetTable with newcard
  LHpi.FillCardsetTable might call LHpi.MergeCardrows
  then adds a (merged) row to cardsetTable
(optionally) LHpi.MainImportCycle calls LHpi.SaveCSV once cardsetTable is complete
LHpi.MainImportCycle loops through cardsetTable and calls LHpi.SetPrice

dropping cards

• if LHpi.BuildCardData sets card.drop=true, LHpi.FillCardsetTable is skipped.
• site.ParseHtmlData can set card.drop, which will be preserved by LHpi.BuildCardData.
• if not card.name then card.drop = true
• if string.find( card.name , "%(DROP[ %a]*%)" ) then card.drop = true
  • An example is in LHpi.magicuniverseDE.lua's site.BCDpluginPre. The advantage of changing the name above setting card.drop directly is that you can also add a reason for dropping to the name, which will be loggged if LOGDROPS=true.

non-trivial tables

To prevent difficult-to-find syntax errors, you might want to end each table field with a , or ;, even if it is not necessarry for the last entry.

version history

I decided to start all versions at 2.0, since it's the continuation of magicuniverseDEv1.6.lua, but with enough changes to warrant the next major version number. Do not expect revision numbers to stay synched. Starting with 2.2.1, sitescript minor version will conform to used library version, and the sitecripts will have their version suffixed.Starting with 2.7 sitescript versioning will be libversion.dataversion.sitescriptrevision. This should make it more clear which versions to keep and what can be deleted after updating. The sitescripts will know which library and data version they need and attempt to load the right one or exit gracefully.

In case you need an old version or just want to see how the scripts have evolved: The version numbers below are also download links.

pre-2.0

1.2 (Downloaded 22 times)

first public release

1.3 (Downloaded 20 times)

started externalizing site-specific data to seperate .config . exeptions for some sets still remain in the code.

1.4 (Downloaded 29 times)

sanity checks should be sane again :)

config externalization progressed far enough that adding new sets should be easy

1.5 (Downloaded 5 times)

added RtR to avsets

updated expected fail and drop counts

continued config externalization and script generalization efforts

moved gpl.txt from within the zip to seperate attachment

1.6 (Downloaded 1 time)

last release under the name magicuniverseDEv1.x.lua

added Gatecrash to avsets and expectedcounts (shop does not yet provide foil)

renamed .config to .lconf to ease syntax highlighting

got rid of utf-8 BOM

changed some comments to luadoc-like

LHpi lib

2.0

completely refactored, I'll call the externalization complete:

config became sitescript, old script (and work-in-progress mtgmintcardEURO script) became the library.

improved language handling

slightly improved conflict handling: same price is merged, different price is averaged.

2.1

added number of cards per set

if no expectation is defined in sitescript, expect all cards and 0 tokens to be set successfully

minor fix to debug loging

moved handling of undefined sitescript fields to LHpi.DoImport

adapted to new sitescripts and confirmed that nothing broke in the old ones

DOING format logging more readable

reorganized LHpi.sets cardcount and variants

for kicks and giggles, have SAVETABLE generate a csv usable by woogerboys importprices :-)

2.2

fixed handling of unset cardcounts

updated for MA 1.5.2.264b (Dragon's Maze cardcount added)

fixed savepath handling for new versioning scheme

2.3

updated for MA 1.5.2.267 (M14 and MMA added)

2.4

added Theros

2.5

changed site.BCDpluginName(name, setid) to site.BCDpluginPre(card, setid) and site.BCDpluginCard(card, setid) to :site.BCDpluginPost(card, setid)

fixes to Token handling

GetSourceData now actually preserves all data from site.ParseHtmlData

adjusted handling of multiple pages per set

2.6

added BNG and Commander2013

started adding missing special and promo sets

expanded version tables for old expansions

count foiltweak events

minor improvements and fixes

2.7pre1

fix handling of site.ParseHtmlData supplied sourcerow.* data

pass supImportfoil from MainImportCycle to BuildCardData

improved card dropping in BuildCardData

ListSources now drops foilonly urls if foil import is deselected

2.7

externalized static set data to LHpi.Data

look for LHpi and LHpi.Data in Prices\lib\

set default values for unset sitescript options

fixed luadoc comments

BuildCardData drops unwanted foil/nonfoil cards/prices to make sure user wishes are honoured

LHpi.Data

1

initial release, split from LHpi library 2.6

added all Special Sets

magicuniverseDE

2.0

initial release

2.1

updated for MA v1.5.2.264

use LHpi-v2.1

let LHpi lib set savepath

2.2

German Nemesis added

2.2.1

Updated for MA 1.5.2.264b (includes Dragon's Maze)

use LHpi-v2.2

2.3.1

use LHpi-v2.3

preemptively added M14

2.5.1

preemptively added Theros

removed lots of Ae -> Æ replacements

changed BuildUrl to match lib 2.5

2.5.2

fixed Theros

2.6.1

use LHpi-v2.6 (BNG)

mtgmintcard

2.0

initial release

2.1

updated for MA v1.5.2.264

use LHpi-v2.1

let LHpi lib set savepath

2.2.1

Updated for MA 1.5.2.264b (includes Dragon's Maze)

use LHpi-v2.2

2.2.2

updated expected dropcounts

2.3.1

use LHpi-v2.3

added MMA and M14

2.5.1

added Theros

changed BuildUrl (crudely) to multiple pages per set

lots of small fixes

2.6.1

use LHpi-v2.6

added BNG,FTV:20,DD:HvsM,DD:SvT,DD:VvK,DD:EvT,DD:DvD,Beatdown,Unhinged,Unglued,Portal,Chronicles

tcgplayerPriceGuide

2.0

initial release

just adapted Golob's avsets to LHpi syntax and tested basic functionality

2.1

updated for MA v1.5.2.264

use LHpi-v2.1

let LHpi lib set savepath

tested all core and expansions up to gatecrash, also 3 portal sets and both "Un-sets"

added namereplace table and expected card counts

commented out remaining untested sets

2.2.1

Updated for MA 1.5.2.264b (includes Dragon's Maze)

use LHpi-v2.2

2.3.1

use LHpi-v2.3

added MMA and M14

2.4.1

added Theros

lots of Ae -> Æ replacements

2.5.1

changed BuildUrl to match lib 2.5

2.6.1

use LHpi-v2.6

added BNG,FTV:20,DD:HvsM,DD:SvT,DD:VvK,DD:EvT,DD:DvD,Beatdown

now with less expected fails and slightly better support for card variants

2.7.1.1

use LHpi-v2.7 and LHpi.Data-v1

load lib from \lib subdir

cleaned site.sets' frucs

added an option to just copy English card's prices to other languages

trader-onlineDE

2.0

unreleased

2.1

updated for MA v1.5.2.264

rewrote BuildURL and ParseHTMLData, as site was changed in the meantime.

2.2

German Nemesis added

2.2.1

Updated for MA 1.5.2.264b (includes Dragon's Maze)

use LHpi-v2.2

2.3.1

use LHpi-v2.3

added MMA and preemptively M14

2.5.1

preemptively added Theros

lots of Ae -> Æ replacements

use new 2.5 BuildCardDataPlugins for improved token handling

changed BuildUrl to match lib 2.5

2.5.2

fixed THS

2.6.1

use LHpi-v2.6 (BNG)

added BNG and all available special sets

sitescriptTemplate

2.0

initial release as part of LHpi-v2.0.zip

2.1

use LHpi-v2.1

let LHpi lib set savepath

moved to seperate file instead of including it in LHpi lib zip

2.2.1

use LHpi-v2.2

2.5.1

use LHpi-v2.5

2.6.1

use LHpi-v2.6

pre-populated site.sets with all sets

added LOGFOILTWEAK option

2.7.1.1

use LHpi-v2.7 and LHpi.Data-v1

load lib from \lib subdir

cleaned up luadoc and improved documentation

dummyMA

0

initial release as part of LHpi-v2.0.zip

0.1

moved to seperate file instead of including it in LHpi lib zip

0.2

Backwards compatible with Lua5.1

tested with seperated LHpi.Data

License

The LHpi library and all its sitescripts are released as open source under the [GNU General Public License]. Please note that LHpi is thusly licensed seperately from Magic Album proper, which to date is closed source.

Other scripts

Just for reference: These unrelated pricing scripts exist

• "MTG Mint Card.lua" by Goblin Hero and Stromglad1 is included with Magic Album as a working script example.
• "Import Prices" by woogerboy21.