Excel VBA - Web Scraping - Get value in HTML Table cell - excel

I am trying to create a macro that scrapes a cargo tracking website.
But I have to create 4 such macros as each airline has a different website.
I am new to VBA and web scraping.
I have put together a code that works for 1 website. But when I tried to replicate it for another one, I am stuck in the loop. I think it maybe how I am referring to the element, but like I said, I am new to VBA and have no clue about HTML.
I am trying to get the "notified" value in the highlighted line from the image.
IMAGE:"notified" text to be extracted
Below is the code I have written so far that gets stuck in the loop.
Any help with this would be appreciated.
Sub FlightStat_AF()
Dim url As String
Dim ie As Object
Dim nodeTable As Object
'You can handle the parameters id and pfx in a loop to scrape dynamic numbers
url = "https://www.afklcargo.com/mycargo/shipment/detail/057-92366691"
'Initialize Internet Explorer, set visibility,
'call URL and wait until page is fully loaded
Set ie = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
ie.Visible = False
ie.navigate url
Do Until ie.readyState = 4: DoEvents: Loop
'Wait to load dynamic content after IE reports it's ready
'We can do that in a loop to match the point the information is available
Do
On Error Resume Next
Set nodeTable = ie.document.getElementByClassName("block-whisper")
On Error GoTo 0
Loop Until Not nodeTable Is Nothing
'Get the status from the table
MsgBox Trim(nodeTable.getElementsByClassName("fs-12 body-font-bold").innerText)
'Clean up
ie.Quit
Set ie = Nothing
Set nodeTable = Nothing
End Sub

Some basics:
For simple accesses, like the present ones, you can use the get methods of the DOM (Document Object Model). But there is an important difference between getElementByID() and getElementsByClassName() / getElementsByTagName().
getElementByID() searches for the unique ID of a html tag. This is written as the ID attribute to html tags. If the html standard is kept by the page, there is only one element with this unique ID. That's the reason why the method begins with getElement.
If the ID is not found when using the method, VBA throws a runtime error. Therefore the call is encapsulated in the loop from the other answer from me, into switching off and on again the error handling. But in the page from this question there is no ID for the html area in question.
Instead, the required element can be accessed directly. You tried the access with getElementsByClassName(). That's right. But here comes the difference to getElementByID().
getElementsByClassName() and getElementsByTagName() begin with getElements. Thats plural because there can be as many elements with the same class or tag name as you want. This both methods create a html node collection. All html elements with the asked class or tag name will be listet in those collections.
All elements have an index, just like an array. The indexes start at 0. To access a particular element, the desired index must be specified. The two class names fs-12 body-font-bold (class names are seperated by spaces, you can also build a node collection by using only one class name) deliver 2 html elements to the node collection. You want the second one so you must use the index 1.
This is the VBA code for the asked page by using the IE:
Sub FlightStat_AF()
Dim url As String
Dim ie As Object
'You can handle the parameters id and pfx in a loop to scrape dynamic numbers
url = "https://www.afklcargo.com/mycargo/shipment/detail/057-92366691"
'Initialize Internet Explorer, set visibility,
'call URL and wait until page is fully loaded
Set ie = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
ie.Visible = False
ie.navigate url
Do Until ie.readyState = 4: DoEvents: Loop
'Wait to load dynamic content after IE reports it's ready
'We do that with a fix manual break of a few seconds
'because the whole page will be "reload"
'The last three values are hours, minutes, seconds
Application.Wait (Now + TimeSerial(0, 0, 3))
'Get the status from the table
MsgBox Trim(ie.document.getElementsByClassName("fs-12 body-font-bold")(1).innerText)
'Clean up
ie.Quit
Set ie = Nothing
End Sub
Edit: Sub as function
This sub to test the function:
Sub testFunction()
Dim flightStatAfResult As String
flightStatAfResult = FlightStat_AF("057-92366691")
MsgBox flightStatAfResult
End Sub
This is the sub as function:
Function FlightStat_AF(cargoNo As String) As String
Dim url As String
Dim ie As Object
Dim result As String
'You can handle the parameters id and pfx in a loop to scrape dynamic numbers
url = "https://www.afklcargo.com/mycargo/shipment/detail/" & cargoNo
'Initialize Internet Explorer, set visibility,
'call URL and wait until page is fully loaded
Set ie = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
ie.Visible = False
ie.navigate url
Do Until ie.readyState = 4: DoEvents: Loop
'Wait to load dynamic content after IE reports it's ready
'We do that with a fix manual break of a few seconds
'because the whole page will be "reload"
'The last three values are hours, minutes, seconds
Application.Wait (Now + TimeSerial(0, 0, 3))
'Get the status from the table
result = Trim(ie.document.getElementsByClassName("fs-12 body-font-bold")(1).innerText)
'Clean up
ie.Quit
Set ie = Nothing
'Return value of the function
FlightStat_AF = result
End Function

Related

Scraping table behind login wall

I am struggling to get the right piece of code to scrape a table that is being a password protected website into an excel workbook. I have been able to get all of the code to work up to the scraping of the table part. When I run the code, it opens IE, logins in but then errors out (91: Object variable or WITH block variable not set). The code is below:
Private Sub CommandButton3_Click()
Declare variables
Dim IE As Object
Dim Doc As HTMLDocument
Dim HTMLTable As Object
Dim TableRow As Object
Dim TableCell As Object
Dim myRow As Long
'Create a new instance of Internet Explorer
Set IE = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
IE.Visible = True
'Navigate to the website
IE.Navigate "https://www.myfueltanksolutions.com/validate.asp"
'Wait for the page to finish loading
Do While IE.ReadyState <> 4
DoEvents
Loop
'Set the document object
Set Doc = IE.Document
'Fill in the security boxes
Doc.all("CompanyID").Value = "ID"
Doc.all("UserId").Value = "Username"
Doc.all("Password").Value = "Password"
'Click the submit button
Doc.all("btnSubmit").Click
'Wait for the page to finish loading
Do Until IE.ReadyState = READYSTATE_COMPLETE
DoEvents
Loop
'Set the HTMLTable object
Set HTMLTable = Doc.getElementById("RecentInventorylistform")
'Loop through each row in the table
For Each TableRow In HTMLTable.getElementsByTagName("tr")
'Loop through each cell in the row
For Each TableCell In TableRow.getElementsByTagName("td")
'Write the table cell value to the worksheet
Worksheets("Sheet1").Range("A5").Offset(myRow, 0).Value = TableCell.innerText
myRow = myRow + 1
Next TableCell
Next TableRow
Do Until IE.ReadyState = READYSTATE_COMPLETE
DoEvents
Loop
'Log out and close website
IE.Navigate ("https://www.myfueltanksolutions.com/signout.asp?action=rememberlogin")
IE.Quit
End Sub
I have included the HTML code of the table I am trying to scrape on the re-directed page after login.
I wont be tired to told it again and again and again and ... ;-)
Don't work with the IE anymore. MS is actively phasing it out!
But for explanation:
I'am sure, this is the code fragment which don't do what you expect:
...
...
'Wait for the page to finish loading
Do Until IE.ReadyState = READYSTATE_COMPLETE
DoEvents
Loop
'Set the HTMLTable object
Set HTMLTable = Doc.getElementById("RecentInventorylistform")
...
...
Waiting for READYSTATE_COMPLETE doesn't work here (for which reasons ever). So the code will go on without a stop and doesn't load the new content. The use of getElementByID() ends up in the named error then because there is no element with that id.
Excursus for some get-methods of the DOM (Document Object Model):
The methods getElementsByTagName() and getElementsByClassName() will build a node collection which contains all elements with the given criterion. If you build a collection like that with getElementsByTagName("a") you get a collection with all anchor tags. Every element of the collection can be called with it's index like in an array. If you want to know how many elements are in a collection like that you can read the attribute length. If there is no element you ask for, in our example a-tags, the length will be 0. But the collection was build so you have an object.
The get-methods which build a collection have an s for plural in ...Elements... But getElementByID() has no s because an id can only be once in a html document. No collection needed here. The method getElementByID() always try to buld an object from the asked criterion. If there is no element like that you will get the error that there is no object.
How to solve the issue:
We must change the termination criterion and the body of the loop. We must ask again and again if the element with the wanted id is present. To do that we must use the given line:
Set HTMLTable = Doc.getElementById("RecentInventorylistform")
Like I said before there will be raising an error if it is not present. That's right. But with On Error Resume Next we can ignore any error in the code.
Attention!
Only use this in specific situations and switch back to error handling with On Error GoTo 0 after the critical part of code.
Replace the code I posted above in this answer with the following one:
(To avoid endless loops it is recommended to use a time out mechanism too. But I will keep it simple here.)
Do
On Error Resume Next
Set HTMLTable = Doc.getElementById("RecentInventorylistform")
On Error GoTo 0
Loop While HTMLTable Is Nothing

Login to web page and scraping data using VBA

I'm coding a macro that will load a web page, login in it and get the datas from a table.
Thanks to several topics here I've done that:
Sub sail2()
Dim ie As Object
Set ie = New(InternetExplorer.Application")
ie.Visible = True
ie.Navigate "http://pfrwtekref/websail/"
With ie
Dim oLogin As Object, oPassword As Object
Set oLogin = .document.getElementById("txtPwd")(0)
Set oPassword = .document.getElementById("txtPwd")(0)
oLogin.Value = test
oPassword.Value = test
.document.forms(0).submit
End With
End Sub
But I have two type of errors "automation error" if I launch the macro and "error 462 - server not available"
Can anyone help me ?
Thanks for reading and have a good day !
The first issue seems to be that you have a mismatched comma on the third line; however, seeing as you're are complaining about an automation error I think that may be just a typo on this site.
I can't see your internal website so I'm just guessing but I suspect the next issue is that there is no element with ID "txtPwd". You can check to confirm by pressing Ctrl-Shift-C and then selecting the username and password entry boxes.
Finally, depending on how the site is set up your .document.forms(0).submit may not work. You may need to find the ID for the submit button class submit. Below is a function I created a while back for such a task:
Function logIn(userName As String, password As String) As Boolean
'This routine logs into the grade book using given credentials
Dim ie As New InternetExplorer
Dim doc As HTMLDocument
On Error GoTo loginFail
ie.Navigate "[website here]"
'ie.Visible = True
Do While ie.ReadyState <> READYSTATE_COMPLETE Or ie.Busy: DoEvents: Loop 'Wait server to respond
Set doc = ie.Document
doc.getElementsByName("u_name").Item(0).Value = userName 'These may be different for you
doc.getElementsByName("u_pass").Item(0).Value = password
doc.getElementsByClassName("btn").Item(0).Click
Do While ie.ReadyState <> READYSTATE_COMPLETE Or ie.Busy: DoEvents: Loop 'Wait server to respond
Set doc = ie.Document
'Add a check to confirm you aren't on the same page
ie.Quit
Set ie = Nothing
LogIn = True
Exit Function
loginFail:
MsgBox "There was an issue logging in. Please try again."
logIntoGradeBook = False
End Function
Note that the site I was dealing with was set up poorly and so I needed to switch to GetElementsByName and GetElementsByClassName to get access to what I needed. You may be fine with IDs.
Why don't you try to use the Excel PowerQuery to get your data from the tables you need? When your desired columns are done, you just click in close and load, select data model e now you can use a macro to perform a PivotTable whenever you load the document or just use a PivotTable and the data will be refreshed when you use the refresh data in data ribbon.

Excel VBA IE Object and using dropdown list

I am experimenting with web automation and struggling a bit trying to utilize a drop down list.
My code works up to the point of searching for a company name and hitting "go". On the new page I can't seem to find the right code that selects the group of elements that represents the drop down list. I then want to select "100" entries, but I can't even grab the nodes that represent this list.
I have been browsing multiple different pages on stackoverflow that talk about CSS selectors and looked at tutorials but that doesn't seem to help either. I either end up grabbing nothing, or whatever I grab can't use the getElementsByTagName method, which ultimately I am trying to drill down into the td and select nodes . Not sure what to do with those yet, but I can't even grab them. Thoughts?
(note stopline is just a line that I use a breakpoint on to stop my code)
CSS helper website: https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/trysel.asp
Code:
Option Explicit
Sub test()
On Error GoTo ErrHandle
Dim ie As New InternetExplorer
Dim doc As New HTMLDocument
Dim ws As Worksheet
Dim stopLine As Integer
Dim oSearch As Object, oSearchButton As Object
Dim oForm As Object
Dim oSelect As Object
Dim list As Object
Set ws = ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("Sheet1")
ie.Visible = True
ie.navigate "https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html"
Do
DoEvents
Loop Until ie.readyState = READYSTATE_COMPLETE
Set doc = ie.Document
Set oSearch = doc.getElementById("companysearchform")
Set oSearchButton = oSearch.getElementsByTagName("input")(1)
Set oSearch = oSearch.getElementsByTagName("input")(0)
oSearch.Value = "Summit Midstream Partners, LP"
oSearchButton.Click
Do
DoEvents
Loop Until ie.readyState = READYSTATE_COMPLETE
Set doc = ie.Document
Set list = doc.querySelectorAll("td select")
stopLine = 1
Exit Sub
ErrHandle:
MsgBox Err.Number & " - " & Err.Description, vbCritical
Exit Sub
End Sub
td select will return a single node so you only need querySelector. The node has an id so you might as well use the quicker querySelector("#count") to target the parent select. To change the option you can then use SelectedIndex on the parent select, or, target the child option by its value attribute querySelector("[value='100']").Selected = True. You may then need to attach and trigger change/onchange htmlevent to the parent select to register the change.
However, I would simply extract the company CIK from current page then concatenate the count=100 param into the url and .Navigate2 that using following format:
https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001549922&type=&dateb=&owner=include&count=100&search_text=
You can extract CIK, after initial search company click and wait for page load, with:
Dim cik As String
cik = ie.document.querySelector("[name=CIK]").value
ie.Navigate2 "https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=" & cik & "&type=&dateb=&owner=include&count=100&search_text="
Given several params are left blank you can likely shorten to:
"https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=" & cik & "&owner=include&count=100"
If you are unable to get the initial parent select you probably need a timed loop waiting for that element to be present after clicking the search button. An example is shown here in a StackOverflow answer.

Error "Object variable or with block variable not set" when using getElementsByClassName

I am want to scrap from amazon some fields.
Atm I am using a link and my vba script returns me name and price.
For example:
I put the link into column A and get the other fields in the respective columns, f.ex.: http://www.amazon.com/GMC-Denali-Black-22-5-Inch-Medium/dp/B00FNVBS5C/ref=sr_1_1?s=outdoor-recreation&ie=UTF8&qid=1436768082&sr=1-1&keywords=bicycle
However, I would also like to have the product description.
Here is my current code:
Sub ScrapeAmz()
Dim Ie As New InternetExplorer
Dim WebURL
Dim Docx As HTMLDocument
Dim productDesc
Dim productTitle
Dim price
Dim RcdNum
Ie.Visible = False
For RcdNum = 2 To ThisWorkbook.Worksheets(1).Range("A65536").End(xlUp).Row
WebURL = ThisWorkbook.Worksheets(1).Range("A" & RcdNum)
Ie.Navigate2 WebURL
Do Until Ie.ReadyState = READYSTATE_COMPLETE
DoEvents
Loop
Set Docx = Ie.Document
productTitle = Docx.getElementById("productTitle").innerText
'productDesc = Docx.getElementsByClassName("productDescriptionWrapper")(0).innerText
price = Docx.getElementById("priceblock_ourprice").innerText
ThisWorkbook.Worksheets(1).Range("B" & RcdNum) = productTitle
'ThisWorkbook.Worksheets(1).Range("C" & RcdNum) = productDesc
ThisWorkbook.Worksheets(1).Range("D" & RcdNum) = price
Next
End Sub
I am trying to get the product description by using productDesc = Docx.getElementsByClassName("productDescriptionWrapper")(0).innerText.
However, I get an error.
Object variable or with block variable not set.
Any suggestion why my statement does not work?
I appreciate your replies!
I'm pretty sure your problem is being caused by attempting to access the document before it's completely loaded. You're just checking ie.ReadyState.
This is my understanding of the timeline for loading a page with an IE control.
Browser connects to page: ie.ReadyState = READYSTATE_COMPLETE. At this point, you can access ie.document without causing an error, but the document has only started loading.
Document fully loaded: ie.document.readyState = "complete"
(note that frames may still be loading and AJAX processing may still be occurring.)
So you really need to check for two events.
Do
If ie.ReadyState = READYSTATE_COMPLETE Then
If ie.document.readyState = "complete" Then Exit Do
End If
Application.Wait DateAdd("s", 1, Now)
Loop
edit: after actually looking at the page you're trying to scrape, it looks like the reason it's failing is because the content you're trying to get at is in an iframe. You need to go through the iframe before you can get to the content.
ie.document.window.frames("product-description-iframe").contentWindow.document.getElementsByClassName("productDescriptionWrapper").innerText

How does one wait for an Internet Explorer 9 frame to load using VBA Excel?

There are many online resources that illustrate using Microsoft Internet Explorer Controls within VBA Excel to perform basic IE automation tasks. These work when the webpage has a basic construct. However, when webpages contain multiple frames they can be difficult to work with.
I need to determine if an individual frame within a webpage has completely loaded. For example, this VBA Excel code opens IE, loads a webpage, loops thru an Excel sheet placing data into the webpage fields, executes search, and then returns the IE results data to Excel (my apologies for omitting the site address).
The target webpage contains two frames:
1) The searchbar.asp frame for search value input and executing search
2) The searchresults.asp frame for displaying search results
In this construct the search bar is static, while the search results change according to input criteria. Because the webpage is built in this manner, the IEApp.ReadyState and IEApp.Busy cannot be used to determine IEfr1 frame load completion, as these properties do not change after the initial search.asp load. Therefore, I use a large static wait time to avoid runtime errors as internet traffic fluctuates. This code does work, but is slow. Note the 10 second wait after the cmdGO statement. I would like to improve the performance by adding solid logic to determine the frame load progress.
How do I determine if an autonomous frame has finished loading?
' NOTE: you must add a VBA project reference to "Internet Explorer Controls"
' in order for this code to work
Dim IEapp As Object
Dim IEfr0 As Object
Dim IEfr1 As Object
' Set new IE instance
Set IEapp = New InternetExplorer
' With IE object
With IEapp
' Make visible on desktop
.Visible = True
' Load target webpage
.Navigate "http://www.MyTargetWebpage.com/search.asp"
' Loop until IE finishes loading
While .ReadyState <> READYSTATE_COMPLETE
DoEvents
Wend
End With
' Set the searchbar.asp frame0
Set IEfr0 = IEapp.Document.frames(0).Document
' For each row in my worksheet
For i = 1 To 9999
' Input search values into IEfr0 (frame0)
IEfr0.getElementById("SearchVal1").Value = Cells(i, 5)
IEfr0.getElementById("SearchVal2").Value = Cells(i, 6)
' Execute search
IEfr0.all("cmdGo").Click
' Wait a fixed 10sec
Application.Wait (Now() + TimeValue("00:00:10"))
' Set the searchresults.asp frame1
Set IEfr1 = IEapp.Document.frames(1).Document
' Retrieve webpage results data
Cells(i, 7) = Trim(IEfr1.all.Item(26).innerText)
Cells(i, 8) = Trim(IEfr1.all.Item(35).innerText)
Next
As #JimmyPena said. it's a lot easier to help if we can see the URL.
If we can't, hopefully this overview can put you in the right direction:
Wait for page to load (IEApp.ReadyState and IEApp.Busy)
Get the document object from the IE object. (done)
Loop until the document object is not nothing.
Get the frame object from the document object.
Loop until the frame object is not nothing.
Hope this helps!
I used loop option to check the field value until its populated like this
Do While IE.Document.getElementById("USERID").Value <> "test3"
IE.Document.getElementById("USERID").Value = "test3"
Loop
this is a Rrrreeally old thread, but I figured I would post my findings, because I came here looking for an answer...
Looking in the locals window, I could see that the "readystate" variable was only "READYSTATE_COMPLETE" for the IE App itself. but for the iframe, it was lowercase "complete"
So I explored this by using a debug.print loop on the .readystate of the frame I was working with.
Dim IE As Object
Dim doc As MSHTML.HTMLDocument
Set doc = IE.Document
Dim iframeDoc As MSHTML.HTMLDocument
Set iframeDoc = doc.Frames("TheFrameIwasWaitingFor").Document
' then, after I had filled in the form and fired the submit event,
Debug.Print iframeDoc.readyState
Do Until iframeDoc.readyState = "complete"
Debug.Print iframeDoc.readyState
DoEvents
Loop
So this will show you line after line of "loading" in the immediate window, eventually showing "complete" and ending the loop. it can be abridged to remove the debug.prints of course.
another thing:
debug.print iframeDoc.readystate ' is the same as...
debug.print doc.frames("TheFrameIwasWaitingFor").Document.readystate
' however, you cant use...
IE.Document.frames("TheFrameIwasWaitingFor").Document.readystate ' for some reason...
forgive me if all of this is common knowledge. I really only picked up VBA scripting a couple days ago...

Resources