Thanks to Kaarthik & Arsalan. A couple of followup questions...
I do not need the user to interact with the webpages the program hits
- so the overhead of System.Net.WebBrowser is somthing I am trying to
eliminate. Two questions:
1) Given Arsalan's example, can I take the value of sHTML and force
that into an HTMLdocument object so I can use methods like
"GetElementsByTagName"?
For example:
Dim w As System.Net.WebClient
Dim sHTML As String
w = New System.Net.WebClient
sHTML = w.DownloadString("http://www.google.com";)
dim x as HTMLdocument
x = sHTML
debug.print x.GetElementsByTagName("INPUT").item(2).value
2) Does the System.Net.WebClient have the ability to intereact with
the webpage? Meaning I need to specifically enter data into text
boxes and click on buttons. (Using the POST method - which I see it
will do - won't work for what I need.)
For example:
Dim w As System.Net.WebClient
Dim sHTML As String
Dim x as HTMLdocument
w = New System.Net.WebClient
sHTML = w.DownloadString("http://www.google.com";)
x = sHTML
x.GetElementsByTagName("INPUT").item(2).value = "LookForThisValue"
x.All.GetElementsByName("btnG").click
sHTML = w.downloadstring()
I am sure this won't work, but does the WebClient have the ability to
recognize the objects on the page and interact with them this way or
am I barking up the wrong tree. I am sure there is a way - obviously
if the WebBrowser control can do it, I should be able to do it without
the WebBrowser control. I just need to know if WebClient is what I
need to research or if I have to go to a lower lever and access ports
directly and go right to the TCPIP level. (Again, simply building a
POST transaction won't work in all cases.)
Thanks so much for your help.
