excel vba http request download data from yahoo finance - excel

Question

I am in the process of making a program I wrote using excel vba faster.
The program downloads stock market data from the asx.
I want to get data from 2 urls:
MY CODE
url2 = "http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/table.txt?s=bhp.ax"
Set XMLHTTP = CreateObject("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1")
XMLHTTP.Open "GET", url2, False
XMLHTTP.send
result = XMLHTTP.responseText
ActiveCell.Value = result
Set XMLHTTP = Nothing
URL 1. http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/table.txt?s=bhp.ax
MY PROBLEM.
This file is very large. I thought I could simply store the result of these http requests and print it to the debug window or directly to a cell. However these methods seem to be cutting off parts of the data?
if I download the txt file from url 2 in notepad++ it has almost 200 000 characters
but it excel it has between 3 -5 000. What is the best way to handle these requests so that all the data is captured and I can parse it all later?
URL 2. from the first URL I only want the JSON data which results from the YQL query.
MY PROBLEM
I am not sure how to get just the json data when you follow the link below, and or how to store it so that the problem experienced with URL 1 (missing data) does not occur.
http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/console/?q=select%20symbol%2C%20ChangeRealtime%20from%20yahoo.finance.quotes%20where%20symbol%20in%20%28%22YHOO%22%2C%22AAPL%22%2C%22GOOG%22%2C%22MSFT%22%29%20|%20sort%28field%3D%22ChangeRealtime%22%2C%20descending%3D%22true%22%29%0A%09%09&env=http%3A%2F%2Fdatatables.org%2Falltables.env#h=select%20*%20from%20yahoo.finance.quotes%20where%20symbol%20in%20%28%22bhp.ax%22%29
Many Thanks, Josh.

Answer 1

Try this revised code
Sub GetYahooFinanceTable()
Dim sURL As String, sResult As String
Dim oResult As Variant, oData As Variant, R As Long, C As Long
sURL = "http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/table.txt?s=bhp.ax"
Debug.Print "URL: " & sURL
sResult = GetHTTPResult(sURL)
oResult = Split(sResult, vbLf)
Debug.Print "Lines of result: " & UBound(oResult)
For R = 0 To UBound(oResult)
oData = Split(oResult(R), ",")
For C = 0 To UBound(oData)
ActiveSheet.Cells(R + 1, C + 1) = oData(C)
Next
Next
Set oResult = Nothing
End Sub
Function GetHTTPResult(sURL As String) As String
Dim XMLHTTP As Variant, sResult As String
Set XMLHTTP = CreateObject("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1")
XMLHTTP.Open "GET", sURL, False
XMLHTTP.Send
Debug.Print "Status: " & XMLHTTP.Status & " - " & XMLHTTP.StatusText
sResult = XMLHTTP.ResponseText
Debug.Print "Length of response: " & Len(sResult)
Set XMLHTTP = Nothing
GetHTTPResult = sResult
End Function
This will split up the data into Rows so the max text length are not reached in a cell. Also this have further split the data with commas into corresponding columns.

Answer 2

You may like to try following code from http://investexcel.net/importing-historical-stock-prices-from-yahoo-into-excel/
I just modify the qurl variable to your url and it work, it pouring 4087 line of data to my excel sheet, nicely formatted without any problem.
Just name your sheet1 as Data.
Sub GetData()
Dim DataSheet As Worksheet
Dim EndDate As Date
Dim StartDate As Date
Dim Symbol As String
Dim qurl As String
Dim nQuery As Name
Dim LastRow As Integer
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Application.DisplayAlerts = False
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual
Sheets("Data").Cells.Clear
Set DataSheet = ActiveSheet
' StartDate = DataSheet.Range("startDate").Value
' EndDate = DataSheet.Range("endDate").Value
' Symbol = DataSheet.Range("ticker").Value
' Sheets("Data").Range("a1").CurrentRegion.ClearContents
' qurl = "http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/table.csv?s=" & Symbol
' qurl = qurl & "&a=" & Month(StartDate) - 1 & "&b=" & Day(StartDate) & _
' "&c=" & Year(StartDate) & "&d=" & Month(EndDate) - 1 & "&e=" & _
' Day(EndDate) & "&f=" & Year(EndDate) & "&g=" & Sheets("Data").Range("a1") & "&q=q&y=0&z=" & _
' Symbol & "&x=.csv"
qurl = "http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/table.txt?s=bhp.ax"
Debug.Print qurl
QueryQuote:
With Sheets("Data").QueryTables.Add(Connection:="URL;" & qurl, Destination:=Sheets("Data").Range("a1"))
.BackgroundQuery = True
.TablesOnlyFromHTML = False
.Refresh BackgroundQuery:=False
.SaveData = True
End With
Sheets("Data").Range("a1").CurrentRegion.TextToColumns Destination:=Sheets("Data").Range("a1"), DataType:=xlDelimited, _
TextQualifier:=xlDoubleQuote, ConsecutiveDelimiter:=False, Tab:=True, _
Semicolon:=False, Comma:=True, Space:=False, other:=False
Sheets("Data").Columns("A:G").ColumnWidth = 12
LastRow = Sheets("Data").UsedRange.Row - 2 + Sheets("Data").UsedRange.Rows.Count
Sheets("Data").Sort.SortFields.Add Key:=Range("A2"), _
SortOn:=xlSortOnValues, Order:=xlAscending, DataOption:=xlSortNormal
With Sheets("Data").Sort
.SetRange Range("A1:G" & LastRow)
.Header = xlYes
.MatchCase = False
.Orientation = xlTopToBottom
.SortMethod = xlPinYin
.Apply
.SortFields.Clear
End With
End Sub
(the above is not my code, it was taken from the excel file they posted on investexcel.net link above)