XML String Parsing

[HopkinsProg]

Hey guys, perhaps you can help me with a small issue I'm having.

My goal is to use wininet.dll to submit POST variables to a webpage and download the contents of an XML file in return.

I can successfully submit my variables and I have my XML returned in string form. I would like to keep this in string form, inside the AutoIT script, but I have not found any methods that can directly parse a string, they can only parse files.

So, with a file temporarily created, using AutoIT's FileWrite() function, I am using the XMLDomWrapper script found elsewhere in the forums to parse the XML file.

However, for whatever reason, the string have is not correctly formatted. It looks exactly as I want it to:

<?xml version="1.0"?><output><msg>Hello World!</msg></output>

But, when i pass it to the XML parser, the _GetFirstValue function fails to parse the string, returning 0.

If I manually type in the contents of the file (vs downloading it from the internet), it works perfectly.

Do you all have any suggestions as to why the string I am getting from my webpage looks okay, but for whatever reason will not work when run through the XML parser?

If you know of a way that I can directly parse my string, without having to save a file, that would be the best solution for me.

You assistance is much appreciated. Thank you!

[Prab]

You might want to look at _StringInsert(), StringReplace(), and StringRegExpReplace(). I have used all of them to edit strings in my scripts. (I have never used the XMLDomWrapper, so I don't know if these directly apply.)

[weaponx]

There is an undocumented function in the XML Dom Wrapper called _XMLLoadXML. See if that works for you.

[HopkinsProg]

That would be perfect, but I'm still having issues.

If I pass a hand-typed string, it works perfectly. But, if I pass the output from the web page, it crashes the function call with the attached error message.

So you all can see what I'm doing, here's the relevant code:

expandcollapse popup

#include <guiconstants.au3>
#include "WinINet.au3"
#Include <_XMLDomWrapper.au3>

HotKeySet("{ESC}", "Terminate")
DllOpen("wininet.dll")

$internet = _WinINet_InternetOpen("Mozilla")
If $internet == 0 Then
    MsgBox(0, "Error", "Setup Error")
EndIf

$internetconnect = _WinINet_InternetConnect($internet, $INTERNET_SERVICE_HTTP, "mydomain.com", "80")

If @error Then MsgBox(0, "Error", "Error connecting to the internet.")

$data = "field=value"&@CRLF
$type = "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded"&@CRLF
$agent = "User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0"&@CRLF

$newdata = $agent & $type

$httprequest = _WinINet_HttpOpenRequest($internetconnect, "POST", "/getxml.php")
$addheader = _WinINet_HttpAddRequestHeaders($httprequest, $newdata, $HTTP_ADDREQ_FLAG_ADD)
ConsoleWrite($addheader & @CRLF)

$sendrequest = _WinINet_HttpSendRequest($httprequest,Default,StringToBinary($data))
local $readfile = Binary("")
Do
$readfile &= _WinINet_InternetReadFile($httprequest, 5000)
Until @error<>0 Or Not @extended

$loadedXML=_XMLLoadXML($readfile)
ConsoleWrite("XMLLoadXML: "&$loadedXML&@CRLF)

$myMsg=_GetFirstValue("/output/msg")
msgbox(64,"INFO",$myMsg)

Exit

[weaponx]

It might have to do with the encoding of the returned data. Maybe you can specify a content type for xml in the return request?

"Content-Type", "text/xml"

[HopkinsProg]

Yep, already delivered as text/xml. Even tried text/plain. I've checked the source in browsers, and it looks perfect. x-(

Must be something else wrong with it...

Edit:

*facepalm*

Yeah... I forgot to convert it back from binary... whoops...

Thanks for the help with the rest of it guys!

Edited November 15, 2008 by HopkinsProg