update content for web scraping and API section

Author: behnamyazdan

03-GitAndGitHub/example/transformed_data/customer_sales.csv

@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+SaleID,CustomerName,Email,ProductID,Quantity,SaleTimestamp
+101,John Doe,john.doe@example.com,1,2,2024-01-01 10:00:00
+102,Jane Smith,jane.smith@example.com,2,1,2024-01-01 11:00:00
+103,Bob Johnson,bob.johnson@example.com,3,3,2024-01-02 14:30:00
+104,Alice Williams,alice.williams@example.com,4,3,2024-01-03 09:15:00
+105,Jane Smith,jane.smith@example.com,1,2,2024-01-03 16:45:00

03-GitAndGitHub/example/transformed_data/product_sales.csv

@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+SaleID,ProductName,Category,Quantity,TotalPrice,SaleTimestamp
+101,Smartphone,Electronics,2,1399.98,2024-01-01 10:00:00
+102,Laptop,Electronics,1,999.99,2024-01-01 11:00:00
+103,Tablet,Electronics,3,899.97,2024-01-02 14:30:00
+104,Headphones,Accessories,3,599.97,2024-01-03 09:15:00
+105,Smartphone,Electronics,2,1399.98,2024-01-03 16:45:00

04-WebScrapingAndAPIs/01-IntroductionToWebScrapingAndAPI.md

@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+# Introduction to Web Scraping and APIs
+
+## Introduction to Web Scraping
+
+Web scraping is the automated process of extracting data from websites. It's like having a virtual assistant that browses the web, copies specific pieces of information, and pastes them into a structured format like a spreadsheet or database.
+
+### Examples and Scenarios:
+
+- **E-commerce Price Monitoring:** Imagine you want to track prices of products on multiple e-commerce websites to find the best deals. A web scraper can automatically visit these websites, extract the prices of the products you're interested in, and compile them into a single report.
+- **News Aggregation:** Suppose you want to create a news aggregator that collects headlines from various news websites. A web scraper can gather headlines and summaries from these sites, allowing you to display the latest news on your platform.
+- **Real Estate Listings:** If you want to compare real estate listings from different sites, a web scraper can pull property details like price, location, and description into a centralized database.
+
+### Legal and Ethical Considerations
+While web scraping is a powerful tool, it's important to use it responsibly:
+
+- **Respect Website Terms of Service:** Always review the terms of service of the websites you intend to scrape. Some websites explicitly forbid scraping.
+- **Respect Robots.txt:** Websites often have a `robots.txt` file that indicates which parts of the site can be accessed by automated agents like web scrapers.
+- **Avoid Overloading Servers:** Be mindful of the server load and avoid making excessive requests in a short period, which can lead to server overload or IP blocking.
+- **Personal Data:** Be cautious when scraping personal data and adhere to data privacy regulations.
+
+### Overview of Tools and Libraries
+Several tools and libraries make web scraping easier and more efficient:
+
+- **BeautifulSoup:** A Python library for parsing HTML and XML documents, extracting data from specific tags and attributes.
+- **Requests:** A Python library for making HTTP requests to fetch web pages.
+- **Selenium:** A tool for automating web browsers, useful for scraping dynamic content that requires interaction with JavaScript.
+- **Scrapy:** An open-source and collaborative web crawling framework for Python, designed to be efficient and flexible.
+
+## Introduction to APIs
+
+APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are sets of rules and protocols that allow different software applications to communicate with each other. Think of an API as a waiter in a restaurant: you give your order to the waiter, who then communicates with the kitchen (server) to get what you requested and brings it back to you.
+
+### Examples and Scenarios:
+
+- **Weather Data:** Imagine you are building a weather app. Instead of collecting and updating weather data manually, you can use an API provided by a weather service to fetch real-time data for any location.
+- **Social Media Integration:** Suppose you want to display recent tweets on your website. Twitter's API allows you to fetch recent tweets from specific accounts or based on certain hashtags.
+- **Payment Processing:** If you're running an e-commerce site, you can use APIs from payment processors like PayPal to handle transactions securely.
+
+### Types of APIs: REST, SOAP, GraphQL
+
+- **REST (Representational State Transfer):** The most common type of API, uses HTTP requests to GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE data. It's stateless and relies on standard HTTP methods and status codes.
+  - Example: A REST API for a book store might have endpoints like `/books` to get a list of books, `/books/{id}` to get details of a specific book, and `/books` to add a new book.
+
+- **SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol):** A protocol for exchanging structured information in the implementation of web services, uses XML.
+  - Example: A SOAP API for a bank might allow operations like transferring money, checking account balances, and viewing transaction history.
+
+- **GraphQL:** A query language for APIs that allows clients to request only the data they need, potentially from multiple resources in a single request.
+  - Example: A GraphQL API for a movie database might let you fetch movie titles, directors, and reviews in one query, without needing multiple endpoints.
+
+## Difference Between Web Scraping and Using APIs
+
+- **Web Scraping:** Involves extracting data from the front-end of websites, which is designed for human consumption.
+- **APIs:** Provide a direct way to access the back-end data, usually in a structured format like JSON or XML, designed for programmatic consumption.
+
+By understanding the basics of web scraping and APIs, you'll be well-prepared to delve deeper into these topics and apply them to real-world scenarios. The next steps involve getting hands-on with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build a foundation for effective web scraping.