parsing - Parse HTML content in VBA

Question

I have a question relating to HTML parsing. I have a website with some products and I would like to catch text within page into my current spreadsheet. This spreadsheet is quite big but contains ItemNbr in 3rd column, I expect the text in the 14th column and one row corresponds to one product (item).

My idea is to fetch the 'Material' on the webpage which is inside the Innertext after tag. The id number changes from one page to page (sometimes ).

Here is the structure of the website:

<div style="position:relative;">
    <div></div>
    <table id="list-table" width="100%" tabindex="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" role="grid" aria-multiselectable="false" aria-labelledby="gbox_list-table" class="ui-jqgrid-btable" style="width: 930px;">
        <tbody>
            <tr class="jqgfirstrow" role="row" style="height:auto">
                <td ...</td>
                <td ...</td>
            </tr>
            <tr role="row" id="1" tabindex="-1" class="ui-widget-content jqgrow ui-row-ltr">
                <td ...</td>
                <td ...</td>
            </tr>
            <tr role="row" id="2" tabindex="-1" class="ui-widget-content jqgrow ui-row-ltr">
                <td ...</td>
                <td ...</td>
            </tr>
            <tr role="row" id="3" tabindex="-1" class="ui-widget-content jqgrow ui-row-ltr">
                <td ...</td>
                <td ...</td>
            </tr>
            <tr role="row" id="4" tabindex="-1" class="ui-widget-content jqgrow ui-row-ltr">
                <td ...</td>
                <td ...</td>
            </tr>
            <tr role="row" id="5" tabindex="-1" class="ui-widget-content jqgrow ui-row-ltr">
                <td ...</td>
                <td ...</td>
            </tr>
            <tr role="row" id="6" tabindex="-1" class="ui-widget-content jqgrow ui-row-ltr">
                <td ...</td>
                <td ...</td>
            </tr>
            <tr role="row" id="7" tabindex="-1" class="ui-widget-content jqgrow ui-row-ltr">
                <td role="gridcell" style="padding-left:10px" title="Material" aria-describedby="list-table_">Material</td>
                <td role="gridcell" style="" title="600D polyester." aria-describedby="list-table_">600D polyester.</td>
            </tr>           
            <tr ...>
            </tr>
        </tbody>
    </table> </div>

I would like to get "600D Polyester" as a result.

My (not working) code snippet is as is:

Sub ParseMaterial()

    Dim Cell As Integer
    Dim ItemNbr As String

    Dim AElement As Object
    Dim AElements As IHTMLElementCollection
Dim IE As MSXML2.XMLHTTP60
Set IE = New MSXML2.XMLHTTP60

Dim HTMLDoc As MSHTML.HTMLDocument
Dim HTMLBody As MSHTML.HTMLBody

Set HTMLDoc = New MSHTML.HTMLDocument
Set HTMLBody = HTMLDoc.body

For Cell = 1 To 5                            'I iterate through the file row by row

    ItemNbr = Cells(Cell, 3).Value           'ItemNbr isin the 3rd Column of my spreadsheet

    IE.Open "GET", "http://www.example.com/?item=" & ItemNbr, False
    IE.send

    While IE.ReadyState <> 4
        DoEvents
    Wend

    HTMLBody.innerHTML = IE.responseText

    Set AElements = HTMLDoc.getElementById("list-table").getElementsByTagName("tr")
    For Each AElement In AElements
        If AElement.Title = "Material" Then
            Cells(Cell, 14) = AElement.nextNode.value     'I write the material in the 14th column
        End If
    Next AElement

        Application.Wait (Now + TimeValue("0:00:2"))

Next Cell

Thanks for your help !

Answer 1

Just a couple things that hopefully will get you in the right direction:

• clean up a bit: remove the readystate property testing loop. The value returned by the readystate property will never change in this context - code will pause after the send instruction, to resume only once the server response is received, or has failed to do so. The readystate property will be set accordingly, and the code will resume execution. You should still test for the ready state, but the loop is just unnecessary

• target the right HTML elements: you are searching through the tr elements - while the logic of how you use these elements in your code actually looks to point to td elements

• make sure the properties are actually available for the objects you are using them on: to help you with this, try and declare all your variable as specific objects instead of the generic Object. This will activate intellisense. If you have a difficult time finding the actual name of your object as defined in the relevant library in a first place, declare it as the generic Object, run your code, and then inspect the type of the object - by printing typename(your_object) to the debug window for instance. This should put you on your way

I have also included some code below that may help. If you still can't get this to work and you can share your urls - plz do that.

Sub getInfoWeb()

    Dim cell As Integer
    Dim xhr As MSXML2.XMLHTTP60
    Dim doc As MSHTML.HTMLDocument
    Dim table As MSHTML.HTMLTable
    Dim tableCells As MSHTML.IHTMLElementCollection

    Set xhr = New MSXML2.XMLHTTP60

    For cell = 1 To 5

        ItemNbr = Cells(cell, 3).Value

        With xhr

            .Open "GET", "http://www.example.com/?item=" & ItemNbr, False
            .send

            If .readyState = 4 And .Status = 200 Then
                Set doc = New MSHTML.HTMLDocument
                doc.body.innerHTML = .responseText
            Else
                MsgBox "Error" & vbNewLine & "Ready state: " & .readyState & _
                vbNewLine & "HTTP request status: " & .Status
            End If

        End With

        Set table = doc.getElementById("list-table")
        Set tableCells = table.getElementsByTagName("td")

        For Each tableCell In tableCells
            If tableCell.getAttribute("title") = "Material" Then
                Cells(cell, 14).Value = tableCell.NextSibling.innerHTML
            End If
        Next tableCell

    Next cell

End Sub

EDIT: as a follow-up to the further information you provided in the comment below - and the additionnal comments I have added

'Determine your product number
    'Open an xhr for your source url, and retrieve the product number from there - search for the tag which
    'text include the "productnummer:" substring, and extract the product number from the outerstring
    'OR
    'if the product number consistently consists of the fctkeywords you are entering in your source url
    'with two "0" appended - just build the product number like that
'Open an new xhr for this url "http://www.pfconcept.com/cgi-bin/wspd_pcdb_cgi.sh/y/y2productspec-ajax.p?itemc=" & product_number & "&_search=false&rows=-1&page=1&sidx=&sord=asc"
'Load the response in an XML document, and retrieve the material information

Sub getInfoWeb()

    Dim xhr As MSXML2.XMLHTTP60
    Dim doc As MSXML2.DOMDocument60
    Dim xmlCell As MSXML2.IXMLDOMElement
    Dim xmlCells As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNodeList
    Dim materialValueElement As MSXML2.IXMLDOMElement

    Set xhr = New MSXML2.XMLHTTP60

        With xhr

            .Open "GET", "http://www.pfconcept.com/cgi-bin/wspd_pcdb_cgi.sh/y/y2productspec-ajax.p?itemc=10031700&_search=false&rows=-1&page=1&sidx=&sord=asc", False
            .send

            If .readyState = 4 And .Status = 200 Then
                Set doc = New MSXML2.DOMDocument60
                doc.LoadXML .responseText
            Else
                MsgBox "Error" & vbNewLine & "Ready state: " & .readyState & _
                vbNewLine & "HTTP request status: " & .Status
            End If

        End With

        Set xmlCells = doc.getElementsByTagName("cell")

        For Each xmlCell In xmlCells
            If xmlCell.Text = "Materiaal" Then
                Set materialValueElement = xmlCell.NextSibling
            End If
        Next

        MsgBox materialValueElement.Text

End Sub

EDIT2: an alternative automating IE

Sub searchWebViaIE()
    Dim ie As SHDocVw.InternetExplorer
    Dim doc As MSHTML.HTMLDocument
    Dim anchors As MSHTML.IHTMLElementCollection
    Dim anchor As MSHTML.HTMLAnchorElement
    Dim prodSpec As MSHTML.HTMLAnchorElement
    Dim tableCells As MSHTML.IHTMLElementCollection
    Dim materialValueElement As MSHTML.HTMLTableCell
    Dim tableCell As MSHTML.HTMLTableCell

    Set ie = New SHDocVw.InternetExplorer

    With ie
        .navigate "http://www.pfconcept.com/cgi-bin/wspd_pcdb_cgi.sh/y/y2facetmain.p?fctkeywords=100317&world=general#tabs-4"
        .Visible = True

        Do While .readyState <> READYSTATE_COMPLETE Or .Busy = True
            DoEvents
        Loop

        Set doc = .document

        Set anchors = doc.getElementsByTagName("a")

        For Each anchor In anchors
            If InStr(anchor.innerHTML, "Product Specificatie") <> 0 Then
                anchor.Click
                Exit For
            End If
        Next anchor

        Do While .readyState <> READYSTATE_COMPLETE Or .Busy = True
            DoEvents
        Loop

    End With

    For Each anchor In anchors
        If InStr(anchor.innerHTML, "Product Specificatie") <> 0 Then
            Set prodSpec = anchor
        End If
    Next anchor

    Set tableCells = doc.getElementById("list-table").getElementsByTagName("td")

    If Not tableCells Is Nothing Then
        For Each tableCell In tableCells
            If tableCell.innerHTML = "Materiaal" Then
                Set materialValueElement = tableCell.NextSibling
            End If
        Next tableCell
    End If

    MsgBox materialValueElement.innerHTML

End Sub