VBA download file to a string variable - string

How to download a file from URL to a string variable without saving it to local drive? Similarly to this method in C# I would like it in VBA: Download file from URL to a string
Here is something with download file to disc space: How do i download a file using VBA (Without internet explorer) While it can be some hint, I would like to avoid this intermediate step of getting the file to string.

With WinHttpRequest class you can achieve the file, the .Open method need 2 args: the request method "GET"/"POST", the URL string.
The third arg is optional, boolean, default is True for asynchronous mode:
Set httpRequest = CreateObject("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1")
URL = "http://urlo_of_the_file_you_want"
httpRequest.Open "GET", URL, False
httpRequest.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8"
httpRequest.WaitForResponse
Debug.Print httpRequest.Status
Debug.Print httpRequest.ResponseText
mystring = httpRequest.ResponseText
Then you get the file in the var name mystring

Related

Trying to get ResponseText from a GET request in Twitter

I'm trying to improve my knowledge of VBA, learning about GET, POST and stuff, because I've seen many examples, and can't get what I'm doing wrong. Probably is the Oauth part.
The main problem is that I'm just an Excel guy. I'm not web developer, so my knowledge is almost null, and probably I'm missing a lot of basic stuff.
I hope this question is not too broad.
BACKGROUND: I'm trying to get the ResponseText of a JSON object, from a tweet. The information is public and you don't need to be logged in to see the info I want to get, and you don't need a Twitter account.
For testing, I'm using this tweet: https://twitter.com/StackOverflow/status/1273391252357201922
WHAT I WANT: Checking the code with Developer Tools (I'm using Firefox), I've seen this:
This GET request returns this ResponseText:
So I would like to get that ResponseText into VBA.
MY CODE: Checking different codes here in SO, I've build up this:
Sub test()
Dim MiHttp As Object
Dim MiUrl As String
Set MiHttp = CreateObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP")
MiUrl = "https://api.twitter.com/2/timeline/conversation/1273391252357201922.json?include_profile_interstitial_type=1&include_blocking=1&include_blocked_by=1&include_followed_by=1&include_want_retweets=1&include_mute_edge=1&include_can_dm=1&include_can_media_tag=1&skip_status=1&cards_platform=Web-12&include_cards=1&include_ext_alt_text=true&include_reply_count=1&tweet_mode=extended&include_entities=true&include_user_entities=true&include_ext_media_color=true&include_ext_media_availability=true&send_error_codes=true&simple_quoted_tweet=true&count=20&ext=mediaStats%2ChighlightedLabel&include_quote_count=true"
With MiHttp
.Open "GET", MiUrl
.Send
DoEvents
Debug.Print .responseText
End With
MiHttp.abort
Set MiHttp = Nothing
End Sub
And it runs, no coding errors, but I get this:
{"errors":[{"code":200,"message":"Forbidden."}]}
So I tried adding RequestHeaders with Authoritation:
adding this line of code before .Send:
.setRequestHeader "authorization", "Bearer AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANRILgAAAAAAnNwIzUejRCOuH5E6I8xnZz4puTs%3D1Zv7ttfk8LF81IUq16cHjhLTvJu4FA33AGWWjCpTnA"
And then I get this in the debugger:
{"errors":[{"message":"Rate limit exceeded","code":88}]}
So checked the Twitter library for developers looking info about Bearer stuff and tokens and I must admit I got overwhelmed.
About
Bearer
About
Tokens
And now I'm lost. I thought this would be kind of easy, because it's public info that everyone can get manually, from any tweet, without using any app or logging in Twitter, but it's looks like I'm wrong, and I'm kind of lost.
FINAL QUESTION: I would like to know if I can get that Bearer token in any way, then apply it into my code, to get that JSON responseText (dealing with the JSON and learning about them would be a totally different question, out of scope here).
And I would like to achieve this with VBA, no other apps or languages, because I've have no idea.
Actually I'm not even interested in the full text, just the part surrounded with red line.
Looking for some help, guide, light.
Thanks in advance and I hope this question is not too broad.
Thanks!
UPDATES: Tested #ChristosLytras's answer. I get this error:
UPDATE JULY 2020: now the working url is:
https://api.twitter.com/2/timeline/conversation/1273391252357201922.json?include_profile_interstitial_type=1&include_blocking=1&include_blocked_by=1&include_followed_by=1&include_want_retweets=1&include_mute_edge=1&include_can_dm=1&include_can_media_tag=1&skip_status=1&cards_platform=Web-12&include_cards=1&include_ext_alt_text=true&include_reply_count=1&tweet_mode=extended&include_entities=true&include_user_entities=true&include_ext_media_color=true&include_ext_media_availability=true&send_error_codes=true&simple_quoted_tweet=true&count=20&ext=mediaStats%2ChighlightedLabel&include_quote_count=true
You have to pass a valid fetched Guest Token in the request header along with authorization Bearer and you'll have the response. The twitter public API bearer never changes.
In order to get a new and valid Guest Token for each request, you can make a HEAD request using WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1 instead of MSXML2.XMLHTTP and read the gt cookie using a regular expression like gt=(\d+);. That will fetch the cookie headers each time it's being called. You cannot use MSXML2.XMLHTTP because it uses cache and you won't get a new Guest Token each time you request the HEAD.
Working code tested using Excel 2013 with VBA 7.1:
Dim MiHttp As Object
Dim GuestTokenRE As Object
Dim MiUrl As String
Set MiHttp = CreateObject("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1")
Set GuestTokenRE = CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp")
MiUrl = "https://api.twitter.com/2/timeline/conversation/1273391252357201922.json?include_profile_interstitial_type=1&include_blocking=1&include_blocked_by=1&include_followed_by=1&include_want_retweets=1&include_mute_edge=1&include_can_dm=1&include_can_media_tag=1&skip_status=1&cards_platform=Web-12&include_cards=1&include_ext_alt_text=true&include_reply_count=1&tweet_mode=extended&include_entities=true&include_user_entities=true&include_ext_media_color=true&include_ext_media_availability=true&send_error_codes=true&simple_quoted_tweet=true&count=20&ext=mediaStats%2ChighlightedLabel&include_quote_count=true"
With MiHttp
' Make a HEAD request with no cache to get the Guest Token cookie
.Open "HEAD", "https://twitter.com", False
.setRequestHeader "User-Agent", "Firefox"
.setRequestHeader "Pragma", "no-cache"
.setRequestHeader "Cache-Control", "no-cache"
.Send
DoEvents
' Use a regular expression to extract guest token from response headers
GuestTokenRE.Pattern = "Set-Cookie: gt=(\d+);"
GuestTokenRE.IgnoreCase = True
Dim matches as Object
Set matches = GuestTokenRE.Execute(.getAllResponseHeaders())
If matches.Count = 1 Then
Dim guestToken As String
guestToken = matches.Item(0).Submatches.Item(0)
' Print the Guest Token for validation
Debug.Print "Got Guest Token", guestToken
' Now we have a valid guest token, make the request
.Open "GET", MiUrl, False
' Authorization Bearer is always the same
.setRequestHeader "authorization", "Bearer AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANRILgAAAAAAnNwIzUejRCOuH5E6I8xnZz4puTs%3D1Zv7ttfk8LF81IUq16cHjhLTvJu4FA33AGWWjCpTnA"
.setRequestHeader "x-guest-token", guestToken
.Send
DoEvents
Debug.Print "Got response", .responseText
Else
Debug.Print "Could not fetch Guest Token"
End If
End With
MiHttp.abort
Set MiHttp = Nothing
Set GuestTokenRE = Nothing
Regarding 80072efe error
You'll have to get WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1 to work. The 80072efe error indicates the connection terminates abnormally and you can read more about it here. I didn't have such an issue so these errors do not originate from the endpoint.
Screen capture of the code in action

Check if a file/URL exists on Sharepoint Online

I'm looking for a way of checking if a file exists on SharePoint Online.
Our Sharepoint on premise was moved to Sharepoint Online, since that my code doesn't work.
Existing recommendations don't work. I've been looking for a solution (google) for couple of weeks with no success.
HTTPRequest always returns .Status="OK" and .StatusText="200" even for a file that does not exist in SharePoint folder.
The code below shows what I have tried so far (in many combinations, but result is always the same)
Sub Test_WinHTTPRequest()
Set HttpRequest = CreateObject("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1")
With HttpRequest
.Open "GET", "https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/wt-teams-CServices/WAN%20Fin/FY19-20/test_file.xlsx"
' .Open "GET", "http://company.sharepoint.com/sites/wt-teams-CServices/WAN%20Fin/FY19-20/test_file123.xlsx"
' .Open "GET", "http://company.sharepoint.com/sites/wt-teams-CServices/WAN Fin/FY19-20/test_file123.xlsx"
.Send
st = .Status
stt = .StatusText
rt = .ResponseText
End With
Debug.Print rt, st, stt
End Sub
The same situation with MSXML2.XMLHTTP60 object
Whatever file name I use in URL, HTTPRequest always returns "URL exist".
.ResponceText returns huge output with some HTML code which is exactly the same for any filename I used in URL.
In Internet Explorer or Windows explorer, if I paste the URL with non-existing filename, returns an error as I expect.
did You consider using SharePoint REST Api methods to get the file from folder by server relative url? something like:
https://{site_url}/_api/web/GetFolderByServerRelativeUrl('/Folder Name')/Files('{file_name}')/$value
for more request calls that could meet Your needs please check -> link
I hope this will put You on the right track :)
Here is a function for checking whether the URL exists or not...
Private Function urlExists(url As String) As Boolean ' Reference to Microsoft XML V3 required
Dim Request As New MSXML2.XMLHTTP30
On Error Resume Next
With Request
.Open "GET", url, False
.Send
urlExists = IIf(.Status = 200, True, False)
End With
End Function

Docusign with VBA - code 401

i am trying to get past the simple log template in with DocuSign. Can anyone kindly tell me what is missing in the VBA code. Is there quotes or anything I need to make this work. I added some quotes around my email address. I have a sandbox account and my developer key, but i get a 401 error whether i send execute the "GET" or not. i did take this code from another tread in stackoverflow but i dont know what was in the excel cells to make this code work.
Public Sub APICallTest()
Dim httpRequest As MSXML2.XMLHTTP60
Dim httpResult As MSXML2.DOMDocument60
' defined request and result variables
Set httpRequest = New XMLHTTP60
Set httpResult = New DOMDocument60
'open login information url https://demo.docusign.net/restapi/v2
httpRequest.Open "GET", "https://demo.docusign.net/restapi/v2/login_information.XML", False
httpRequest.setRequestHeader "X-DocuSign-Authentication: <DocuSignCredentials><Username>MyUserName</Username><Password>" + Chr(34) + "my#myemail.com" + Chr(34)</Password><IntegratorKey>myintegratorkey</IntegratorKey></DocuSignCredentials>Accept: application/xml Content-Type: application/xml", "text"
' send login information request
httpRequest.send
Debug.Print httpRequest.Status, "A"
Debug.Print httpRequest.statusText, "B"
Debug.Print httpRequest.responseText, "C"
Exit Sub
The error message is telling you what the problem is- your Integrator Key is either not present in the request or is invalid (i.e. incorrect). I see your VB code that shows you apparently including the key in the header, however since you haven't posted the raw request you're sending out my guess is that your code is not working properly and the key or the header is not being set properly.
Try doing this:
Login to your demo account, go into your preference, and enable the Request Logging feature. (more on how to do that below)
Run your code.
Go back into your account preferences and retrieve the log that would have been created.
Inspect the log and make sure your Integrator Key and X-DocuSign-Authentication header are present and correct.
For a more complete guide on how to enable request logging in your account see here:
https://support.docusign.com/guides/ndse-user-guide-api-request-logging
Or here if you're using the Classic DocuSIgn UI:
https://support.docusign.com/articles/API-Request-Logging
I suspect that the issue is caused because you are trying to set more than one header in the httpRequest.setRequestHeader statement.
I recommend splitting them up to seperate statements
httpRequest.setRequestHeader("X-DocuSign-Authentication","<DocuSignCredentials><Username>MyUserName</Username><Password>" + Chr(34) + "my#myemail.com" + Chr(34)+"</Password><IntegratorKey>myintegratorkey</IntegratorKey></DocuSignCredentials>")
httpRequest.setRequestHeader("Accept","application/xml");
httpRequest.setRequestHeader("Content-Type","application/xml");
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms766589(v=vs.85).aspx
Hope this proves helpful.
It works now!! this is what it ended up looking in VBA. How does someone know to put "application/xml" on the end of the Header definition?
Public Sub APICallTest()
Dim httpRequest As MSXML2.XMLHTTP60
Dim httpResult As MSXML2.DOMDocument60
'defined request and result variables
Set httpRequest = New XMLHTTP60
Set httpResult = New DOMDocument60
'open login information url https://demo.docusign.net/restapi/v2
httpRequest.Open "GET", "https://demo.docusign.net/restapi/v2/login_information"
httpRequest.setRequestHeader "X-DocuSign-Authentication", "<DocuSignCredentials><Username>my#email.com</Username><Password>mypassword</Password><IntegratorKey>mykey</IntegratorKey></DocuSignCredentials>"
httpRequest.setRequestHeader "Accept", "application/xml"
httpRequest.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", "application/xml"
httpRequest.send
Debug.Print httpRequest.Status, "A"
Debug.Print httpRequest.statusText, "B"
Debug.Print httpRequest.responseText, "C"
Set httpRequest = Nothing
Set httpResult = Nothing
Exit Sub

what is the problem with my http GET?

in VBA i am creating a URL:
URL = "http://api.local.yahoo.com/MapsService/V1/geocode?appid=" & yahoo & "&street=" & street & "&city=" & city & "&state=" & state & "&zip=" & zip
for example it sets itself to equal this:
http://api.local.yahoo.com/MapsService/V1/geocode?appid=username123&street=1893 n. clyde morris blvd &city=daytona beach&state=FL&zip=32117
when i manually go to this URL, IT WORKS FINE.
however when i do this:
'Create Http object
If IsEmpty(http) Then Set http = CreateObject("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1")
'Send request To URL
http.Open "GET", URL
http.send
'Get response data As a string
response = http.responseText
it's giving me this for the response:
response="Watch : : response : "<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html><head><title>Yahoo! - 400 Bad Request</title><style>
/* nn4 hide */
/*/*/
bod........"
please note that 50% of the time it returns the correct URL and 50% it gives me a 400 bad request
what am i doing wrong?
wrikken has suggested that i get a URLencoder, but i believe that it was encoding it correctly!
You need to url-encode all your query parameters, otherwise they may result in invalid URLs, depending on their actual value (for instance, a space should be a + or a %20). Google has a multitude of VBA url encode examples, it appears there's no built-in function for it.

How can I send an HTTP POST request to a server from Excel using VBA?

What VBA code is required to perform an HTTP POST from an Excel spreadsheet?
Set objHTTP = CreateObject("MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP")
URL = "http://www.somedomain.com"
objHTTP.Open "POST", URL, False
objHTTP.setRequestHeader "User-Agent", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)"
objHTTP.send ""
Alternatively, for greater control over the HTTP request you can use WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1 in place of MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP.
In addition to the answer of Bill the Lizard:
Most of the backends parse the raw post data. In PHP for example, you will have an array $_POST in which individual variables within the post data will be stored. In this case you have to use an additional header "Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded":
Set objHTTP = CreateObject("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1")
URL = "http://www.somedomain.com"
objHTTP.Open "POST", URL, False
objHTTP.setRequestHeader "User-Agent", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)"
objHTTP.setRequestHeader "Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
objHTTP.send "var1=value1&var2=value2&var3=value3"
Otherwise, you have to read the raw post data on the variable "$HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA".
If you need it to work on both Mac and Windows, you can use QueryTables:
With ActiveSheet.QueryTables.Add(Connection:="URL;http://carbon.brighterplanet.com/flights.txt", Destination:=Range("A2"))
.PostText = "origin_airport=MSN&destination_airport=ORD"
.RefreshStyle = xlOverwriteCells
.SaveData = True
.Refresh
End With
Notes:
Regarding output... I don't know if it's possible to return the results to the same cell that called the VBA function. In the example above, the result is written into A2.
Regarding input... If you want the results to refresh when you change certain cells, make sure those cells are the argument to your VBA function.
This won't work on Excel for Mac 2008, which doesn't have VBA. Excel for Mac 2011 got VBA back.
For more details, you can see my full summary about "using web services from Excel."
To complete the response of the other users:
For this I have created an "WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1" object.
Send a post request with some data from Excel using VBA:
Dim LoginRequest As Object
Set LoginRequest = CreateObject("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1")
LoginRequest.Open "POST", "http://...", False
LoginRequest.setRequestHeader "Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
LoginRequest.send ("key1=value1&key2=value2")
Send a get request with token authentication from Excel using VBA:
Dim TCRequestItem As Object
Set TCRequestItem = CreateObject("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1")
TCRequestItem.Open "GET", "http://...", False
TCRequestItem.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", "application/xml"
TCRequestItem.setRequestHeader "Accept", "application/xml"
TCRequestItem.setRequestHeader "Authorization", "Bearer " & token
TCRequestItem.send
You can use ServerXMLHTTP in a VBA project by adding a reference to MSXML.
Open the VBA Editor (usually by editing a Macro)
Go to the list of Available References
Check Microsoft XML
Click OK.
(from Referencing MSXML within VBA Projects)
The ServerXMLHTTP MSDN documentation has full details about all the properties and methods of ServerXMLHTTP.
In short though, it works basically like this:
Call open method to connect to the remote server
Call send to send the request.
Read the response via responseXML, responseText, responseStream or responseBody
I did this before using the MSXML library and then using the XMLHttpRequest object, see here.

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