SOAP through VBA - vba

Question

I am attempting to pull the info that the following site pulls: http://gis.calhouncounty.org/ParcelViewer/index.html. If you type in PPIN 66078 and then click Property Taxes, it will bring up data. I am attempting to recreate this SOAP request in VBA, but unsuccessfully. It calls the service, but all data in the response is blank. I got so frustrated that I even recreated the full header set, to no avail. Maybe there is a cookie issue, but the cookies on my computer don't seem to expire quickly. Here's what I have in the extract:
URL = "http://gis.calhouncounty.org/wsCalhounParcel2/Inquiry.asmx?WSDL"
method = "getTaxBill"
parcel = Range("A" & currentrow).Value
SoapRequest = SoapRequest & "<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""utf-8""?><soap:Envelope xmlns:soap=""http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"" xmlns:xsd=""http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"" xmlns:xsi=""http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance""> "
SoapRequest = SoapRequest & "<soap:Body>"
SoapRequest = SoapRequest & "<tns:" & method & " xmlns:tns=""http://gis.calhouncounty.org"">"
SoapRequest = SoapRequest & "<tns:PPIN>" & parcel & "</tns:PPIN>"
SoapRequest = SoapRequest & "</tns:" & method & ">"
SoapRequest = SoapRequest & "</soap:Body>"
SoapRequest = SoapRequest & "</soap:Envelope>"
Set objHTTP = CreateObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP")
objHTTP.Open "POST", URL, False
objHTTP.setRequestHeader "Host", "gis.calhouncounty.org"
objHTTP.setRequestHeader "Connection", "keep-alive"
objHTTP.setRequestHeader "Content-Length", SoapRequestLen
objHTTP.setRequestHeader "Origin", "http://gis.calhouncounty.org"
objHTTP.setRequestHeader "X-Requested-With", "ShockwaveFlash/17.0.0.169"
objHTTP.setRequestHeader "SOAPAction", "http://gis.calhouncounty.org/" & method
objHTTP.setRequestHeader "User-Agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/42.0.2311.90 Safari/537.36"
objHTTP.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", "text/xml; charset=utf-8"
objHTTP.setRequestHeader "Accept", "*/*"
objHTTP.setRequestHeader "Referer", "http://gis.calhouncounty.org/ParcelViewer"
objHTTP.setRequestHeader "Accept-Encoding", "gzip, deflate"
objHTTP.setRequestHeader "Accept-Language", "en-US,en;q=0.8"
objHTTP.setRequestHeader "Cookie", "ASPSESSIONIDAABARSAB=DIIJLAGCFJKDFKBCDNMMLEIB; ASPSESSIONIDAAACQSBA=BKAJPFCDCAJLBAKFFBACBMGC; ASPSESSIONIDCCCBRTBA=DKJPBAPDNLIFBOJGCPEDMAHG; __utma=262294995.1570768928.1429018531.1429018531.1430173329.2; __utmc=262294995; __utmz=262294995.1430173329.2.2.utmcsr=google|utmccn=(organic)|utmcmd=organic|utmctr=(not%20provided); ASPSESSIONIDAQTRATAB=OHCBMBMCNALFKOCODDMIAHIA; _ga=GA1.2.90452212.1429018592; __utmt=1; __utma=167846455.90452212.1429018592.1430173349.1430248358.4; __utmb=167846455.1.10.1430248358; __utmc=167846455; __utmz=167846455.1430173349.3.3.utmcsr=google|utmccn=(organic)|utmcmd=organic|utmctr=(not%20provided)"
objHTTP.send SoapRequest
Any help is incredibly appreciated!
-Andy

Answer 1

You are not error checking. Adapt the following error checking to your code. err.number, err.description, err.source, file.status, file.statustext, file.getallresponseheaders.
The URL has to be 100% correct. Unlike a browser there is no code to fix urls.
The purpose of my program is to get error details.
How I get a correct URL is to type my url in a browser, navigate, and the correct URL is often in the address bar. The other way is to use Properties of a link etc to get the URL.
Also Microsoft.XMLHTTP maps to Microsoft.XMLHTTP.1.0. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msxml2.XMLHTTP maps to Msxml2.XMLHTTP.3.0. Try a later one
Try this way using xmlhttp. Edit the url's etc. If it seems to work comment out the if / end if to dump info even if seeming to work. It's vbscript but vbscript works in vb6.
On Error Resume Next
Set File = WScript.CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")
File.Open "GET", "http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/default.aspx", False
'This is IE 8 headers
File.setRequestHeader "User-Agent", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; Trident/4.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30618; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; BCD2000; BCD2000)"
File.Send
If err.number <> 0 then
line =""
Line = Line & vbcrlf & ""
Line = Line & vbcrlf & "Error getting file"
Line = Line & vbcrlf & "=================="
Line = Line & vbcrlf & ""
Line = Line & vbcrlf & "Error " & err.number & "(0x" & hex(err.number) & ") " & err.description
Line = Line & vbcrlf & "Source " & err.source
Line = Line & vbcrlf & ""
Line = Line & vbcrlf & "HTTP Error " & File.Status & " " & File.StatusText
Line = Line & vbcrlf & File.getAllResponseHeaders
wscript.echo Line
Err.clear
wscript.quit
End If
On Error Goto 0
Set BS = CreateObject("ADODB.Stream")
BS.type = 1
BS.open
BS.Write File.ResponseBody
BS.SaveToFile "c:\users\test.txt", 2
Also see if these other objects work.
C:\Users>reg query hkcr /f xmlhttp
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Microsoft.XMLHTTP
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Microsoft.XMLHTTP.1.0
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msxml2.ServerXMLHTTP
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msxml2.ServerXMLHTTP.3.0
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msxml2.ServerXMLHTTP.4.0
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msxml2.ServerXMLHTTP.5.0
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msxml2.ServerXMLHTTP.6.0
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msxml2.XMLHTTP
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msxml2.XMLHTTP.3.0
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msxml2.XMLHTTP.4.0
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msxml2.XMLHTTP.5.0
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msxml2.XMLHTTP.6.0
End of search: 12 match(es) found.
Also be aware there is a limit on how many times you can call any particular XMLHTTP object before a lockout occurs. If that happens, and it does when debugging code, just change to a different xmlhttp object
I get this running your code.
---------------------------
Windows Script Host
---------------------------
Error 0(0x0)
Source
HTTP Error 200 OK
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 21:56:46 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.5
Cache-Control: private, max-age=0
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8
X-AspNet-Version: 2.0.50727
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Keep-Alive: timeout=5, max=100
Connection: Keep-Alive
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------
Then I msgbox out responsebody and I have data sending cat rather than what's in your spreadsheet.