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VBA - scraping websites videos | Excel VBA Part 47.5 - Basic HTTP GET and POST Requests

Posted by Andrew Gould on 05 June 2019

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This video explains the basic differences between the GET and POST methods and how you can use each method to send data along with an HTTP request. You'll learn about adding a query string to a URL for GET requests and how to send values in the body of a POST request. You'll also see how to ensure the values you pass to a request are properly encoded using the Excel EncodeURL function. Throughout the video you'll also learn the basics of using the Chrome Developer Tools to work out how requests are sent by the Chrome browser which helps when translating this to VBA code.

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This video has the following accompanying files:

File name	Type	Description
Basic HTTP GET and POST requests COMPLETED.xlsm	Excel workbook with macros
Basic HTTP GET and POST requests.xlsm	Excel workbook with macros

Click to download a zipped copy of the above files.

There are no exercises for this video.

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This page has 4 threads Add post

a_sh Reply to a_sh Reply

29 Mar 22 at 19:41

Hello again and let me ask another question.

I wrote some function to search in header text but I have trouble to find destination url when I use MSXML and search an item in a website search form and that search guides me to a new url.

Is there any way to obtain the destination address? I really need that.

Another side issue is that using html with MSXML doesn't allow us to use two or more getelementby... in one line of the code. for example when I use IE I can write following code:

Set HTMLDiv = HTMLDoc1.getElementsByClassName("Class1")(0).getElementsByClassName(" Class2")(0)

but when using MSXML I have to break it into the following lines:

HTMLDoc2.body.innerHTML = HTMLDoc1.getElementsByClassName("Class1")(0).innerHTML

Set HTMLDiv = HTMLDoc2.getElementsByClassName(" Class2")(0)

Is there a simpler way to write it?

Andrew G Reply to Andrew G Reply

30 Mar 22 at 07:42

Hi!

It sounds as though you're attempting to make use of features of the web page as provided by a web browser - unfortunately an XMLHTTP request doesn't provide that. If you need to interact with search forms and other parts of the web page I'd recommend automating a browser, either IE or Chrome using Selenium (we have several videos on using Selenium to automate Chrome).

I hope it helps!

a_sh Reply to a_sh Reply

30 Mar 22 at 09:49

Ok thank you. I couldn't believe that there is no way to obtain destination url while using XMLHTTP.

a_sh Reply to a_sh Reply

29 Mar 22 at 10:25

Hello, thank you for your lessons that I can say are the best among all of the relative tutorials I have seen.

I have a problem with parsing data from the "HEAD" part of html.

by using "HTMLDoc.body.innerHTML = XMLRequest.responseText" we lose this part of html that I exactly need to scrape data from.

I searched the whole internet but I couldn't find the solution.

I need to extract a lot of data from this part so I can't use the InStr function and ...

I would be very grateful if you could help me with this.

Andrew G Reply to Andrew G Reply

30 Mar 22 at 08:24

Hi! Have you tried the getResponseHeader and getAllResponseHeaders methods of the XMLHTTP object?

a_sh Reply to a_sh Reply

30 Mar 22 at 09:46

I tried but didn't work.

cfunk Reply to cfunk Reply

07 Oct 21 at 22:14

I'm trying to use this code to login to a website.

VBA Code:

Sub GetTable2() Dim req As New MSXML2.XMLHTTP60 Dim url As String url = "https://1305081.app.netsuite.com/app/common/search/searchresults.nl?searchid=1704&whence=" req.Open "Post", url, False req.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded" req.send "email=(myemail)&password=(mypassword)" 'check if page loaded If req.Status <> 200 Then MsgBox req.Status & " - " & req.statusText Exit Sub End If saveHTMFile req.responseText End Sub

When I get to the point of 'check if page loaded, the message box says "Internal Server Error." Any idea what could be wrong?

Andrew G Reply to Andrew G Reply

08 Oct 21 at 07:16

I'm sorry, I don't know.

jpduffy3 Reply to jpduffy3 Reply

09 Jul 20 at 01:50

Thank you for your very helpful tutorial entitled "Excel VBA Introduction Part 47.5 - Basic HTTP GET and POST Requests." I have run into a problem that stumps me. Following the tutorial, I get the following result:

***************************
<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<base href="/">
<meta charset="UTF-8">

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1,maximum-scale=1,user-scalable=no">
<meta name="mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes">
<title>Profits Run</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans:400,500,600,700,800">

If you are able to give me a suggestion or a work around, I would be very grateful.

Thank you

Andy B Reply to Andy B Reply

09 Jul 20 at 09:14

Hi, the easiest way to get the javascript to run is to use VBA to open the page in a web browser. We have a few videos on how to do this using Internet Explorer (which you may have already seen). If you’re interested in using Chrome you might like to investigate the Selenium library. We don’t have any resources on Selenium but you can find a basic tutorial here. I hope that helps!

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