Parse HTML content in VBA - 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 additional 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

Answer 2

Not related to tables or Excel ( I use MS-Access 2013) but directly related to the topic title. My solution is
Private Sub Sample(urlSource)
Dim httpRequest As New WinHttpRequest
Dim doc As MSHTML.HTMLDocument
Dim tags As MSHTML.IHTMLElementCollection
Dim tag As MSHTML.HTMLHtmlElement
httpRequest.Option(WinHttpRequestOption_UserAgentString) = "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)"
httpRequest.Open "GET", urlSource
httpRequest.send ' fetching webpage
Set doc = New MSHTML.HTMLDocument
doc.body.innerHTML = httpRequest.responseText
Set tags = doc.getElementsByTagName("a")
i = 1
For Each tag In tags
Debug.Print i
Debug.Print tag.href
Debug.Print tag.innerText
'Debug.Print tag.Attributes("any other attributes you need")() ' may return an object
i = i + 1
If i Mod 50 = 0 Then Stop
' or code to store results in a table
Next
End Sub