I wanted an easy way of following some matches on the australian open.  But since I couldn't get the IBM scoreboard working under linux¹ I wanted to try write something myself.

So I've come up with something really simple.

I've just made a python script and with urllib2 I pull the results and format them simply.

Here is the script.

#!/usr/bin/python


#The players you want to follow.
players =["Roger Federer", "Justine Henin", "Andy Roddick", "Rafael Nadal", "Maria Sharapova", "Lleyton Hewitt", "David Nalbandian", "Amelie Mauresmo"]
#The maximum width of the display (maximum chars)
max_width= 14

#Only change below this if you know what you're doing.
import urllib2
import urllib


url = 'http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/scores/index2.html'



def find_player_in_data(player, data):
    startString = '<table width="440" height="100" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" background="/images/scores/ao_sc_0000g5.gif"'
    endString = '<sup></sup></td><td width="5"><spacer type="block" height="1" width="1"></td></tr><tr><td colspan="16" height="4">'
    index = data.find(player)
    if index != -1:
        index = data.find(startString, index-200)
        endIndex = data.find(endString, index)
        return data[index: endIndex+len(endString)]
    else:
        return ""

def find_numbers(data):
    lineBegin = '<td width="1"><spacer type="block" height="1" width="1"></td><td width="19" valign="middle">'
    lineEnd = '</sup></td>'
    
    first = 0
    numbers = []
    last = 0
    while (first != (-1+len(lineBegin))):
        first = data.find(lineBegin)+len(lineBegin)
        last = data.find(lineEnd,first)
        numbers.append(getNumber(data[first:last]))
        data = data[last:]
    return numbers
    
def find_game_number(data):
    firstLine = '<td width="21" valign="middle">'
    vet = "<b><b>"
    first = data.find(firstLine)
    if (data.find(vet) != -1):
        return data[first+len(firstLine):2]
    else:
        return data[first+len(firstLine)+len(vet):2]
        
def is_serving(data):
    """ returns if the player is serving or not"""
    firstLine = '<td width="21" valign="middle">'
    vet = "<b><b>"
    first = data.find(firstLine)
    return (data.find(vet) != -1)

def player(data):
    start = '<td width="264" align="left" valign="middle">&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href='
    startNext = 'class="blue">'
    end = "</a>"
    winner_start = '<b>'
    winner_end = '</b>'
    first = data.find(start)
    next = data.find(startNext,first)
    end = data.find(end,next)
    player_name = data[next+len(startNext):end]
    if player_name.find(winner_start) != -1:
        player_name = player_name[len(winner_start):-len(winner_end)]
        win = True
    else:
        win = False
        
    if len(player_name) > max_width:
        player_name_list = player_name.split(" ")
        first_len = max_width - (len(player_name_list[1])+1)
        result = player_name_list[0][0:first_len] + " " + player_name_list[1]
    return [result, win]
        
def getNumber(char):
    if char[0].isdigit():
        return char[0]
    else:
        return ""
    
def do(data):
    if data == "":
        return
    
    lastBlock = '<td width="5"><spacer type="block" height="1" width="1"></td></tr><tr>'
    firstBlockLastIndex = data.find(lastBlock)
    first = data[0:firstBlockLastIndex]
    last = data[firstBlockLastIndex:]
    first_player = player(first)
    last_player = player(last)
    message = ""
    if (first_player[1] == True | last_player[1] == True):
        message += "Completed\nWinner:\n"
        if (first_player[1] == True):
            winner = first_player
        else:
            winner = last_player
        message += winner[0]
    else:
        serving_1 = is_serving(first)
        serving_2 = is_serving(last)
        message = join_results(first_player[0], find_numbers(first), serving_1) 
        message += "\n"
        message += join_results(last_player[0], find_numbers(last), serving_2)
    return message

def join_results(player, numbers, serving):
    result = player + "\n"
    if serving == True:
        result+= "* "
    else:
        result += "  "
    result += " ".join(numbers)
    return result
    
    
data = urllib2.urlopen(url)
stringData = data.read()
    


for p in players:
    data = find_player_in_data(p, stringData)
    result = do(data)
    if result != None:
        print result

features:
show who's serving
truncate for maximum width (edit max_width in the script)
choose which players to follow (edit players in the script)
show the match winners

bugs/missing:
cannot show 15,30,40,AD,De (this should be simple to add, so maybe I'll add this later)
This script won't probably work for the double matches and if two
players in your list play against each other it will display the match
twice

how to use:
you can choose yourself but I use it in conky. (just add this line in conkyrc²: "${texeci 90 python ~/path/to/script.py}") (screenshot)
other possible use would be: a cron script and terminal, a superkaramba widget, a plasmoid,...


I know this is only a really simple script.  There are probably better ways of doing this but it works and it was written fast.
If you have request, you can always ask, I'll see if I have the time for it (exams for now).
You can change the script as you like but if you made improvments it would always be cool if you shared them.

¹Didn't work in konqueror, firefox nor opera (I have flash 9 installed),  I wrote them an email about this but haven't yet received a response.
²To get conky working in kde I have installed feh and added this line to my conkyrc: "${exec feh --bg-scale `dcop kdesktop KBackgroundIface currentWallpaper 1`}" (source: http://briancarper.net/2006/08/25/transparent-conky-in-kde-part-2/ )