Matlab will not read this webpage using webread(). What am I doing wrong?

clc
clear all
fn = 'Dataset.xlsx';
tBC = [];
opt = detectImportOptions(fn);
shts = sheetnames(fn);
for i=1:1
    tBC=[tBC;readtable(fn,opt,'Sheet',shts(i))];
end
a = tBC.(9);
B = string(a)
check = B(1)
webread(check,options)

check =

"https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/house-joint-resolution/13"

Error using matlab.internal.webservices.HTTPConnector/copyContentToByteArray

The server returned the status 403 with message

"Forbidden" in response to the request to URL

https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/house-joint-resolution/13.

Error in readContentFromWebService (line 46)

byteArray = copyContentToByteArray(connection);

Error in webread (line 125)

[varargout{1:nargout}] = readContentFromWebService(connection, options);

Error in CodeForEm (line 21)

webread(check,options)

[Luca Ferro]

in:

webread(check,options)

options has no set value or am i mistaken?

anyways i tried:

webread('https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/house-joint-resolution/13')

and it works on my machine

[Anton Kogios]

I think Adam may have tried options but omitted it from the post.

I get the same error as Adam when I try:

webread('https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/house-joint-resolution/13')

which is pretty interesting I guess?

Maybe it is to do with location? I am outside of the US.

Answer 1

[Anton Kogios]

This page is likely protected against automated access (see https://mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/365957-why-do-i-get-this-error-message-forbidden-when-trying-to-read-web-data). You may be able to play around with weboptions (particularly username and password if you have an account), but I predict that it will still not work. I do not think there is anything wrong with your code, as this code works with other websites. Here is a list of HTTP Status Codes.

[DGM]

This seems likely, since they offer an API for automated access:

https://api.congress.gov/