THtmlToXml Delphi Reference

THtmlToXml

Class for converting HTML to well-formed XML for the purpose of programmatically extracting (scraping) information from any HTML page.

Object Creation

var
obj: THtmlToXml;
...
begin
obj := THtmlToXml.Create(Self);

Properties

property DropCustomTags: Integer

If set to true, then any non-standard HTML tags will be dropped when converting to XML.

property Html: WideString

The HTML to be converted by the ToXml method. To convert HTML to XML, first set this property to the HTML string and then call ToXml. The ConvertFile method can do file-to-file conversions.

property LastErrorHtml: WideString readonly

Error information in HTML format for the last method called.

property LastErrorText: WideString readonly

Error information in plain-text format for the last method called.

property LastErrorXml: WideString readonly

Error information in XML format for the last method called.

property Nbsp: Integer

Determines how to handle   HTML entities. The default value, 0 will cause   entites to be convert to normal space characters (ASCII value 32). If this property is set to 1, then  's will be converted to  . If set to 2, then &nbps;'s are dropped.

property Version: WideString readonly

The version of the component, such as "1.0.0".

property XmlCharset: WideString

The charset, such as "utf-8" or "iso-8859-1" of the XML to be created. If XmlCharset is empty, the XML is created in the same character encoding as the HTML. Otherwise the HTML is converted XML and converted to this charset.

Methods

function ConvertFile(htmlFilename: WideString, xmlFilename: WideString): Integer;

Converts an HTML file to a well-formed XML file that can be parsed for the purpose of programmatically extracting information.

procedure DropTagType(tagName: WideString);

Allows for any specified tag to be dropped from the output XML. To drop more than one tag, call this method once for each tag type to be dropped.

procedure DropTextFormattingTags();

Causes text formatting tags to be dropped from the XML output. Text formatting tags are: b, font, i, u, br, center, em, strong, big, tt, s, small, strike, sub, and sup.

function IsUnlocked(): Integer;

Returns 1 if the component is already unlocked. Otherwise returns 0.

function ReadFile(filename: WideString): OleVariant;

Convenience method for reading a complete file into a byte array.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

function ReadFileToString(filename: WideString, srcCharset: WideString): WideString;

Convenience method for reading a text file into a string. The character encoding of the text file is specified by srcCharset. Valid values, such as "iso-8895-1" or "utf-8" are listed at: List of Charsets.

Returns a null on failure

function SaveLastError(filename: WideString): Integer;

Saves the last error information to an XML formatted file.

procedure SetHtmlBytes(byteData: OleVariant);

Sets the Html property from a byte array.

function SetHtmlFromFile(filename: WideString): Integer;

Sets the Html property by loading the HTML from a file.

function ToXml(): WideString;

Converts the HTML in the "Html" property to XML and returns the XML string.

Returns a null on failure

procedure UndropTagType(tagName: WideString);

Causes a specified type of tag to NOT be dropped in the output XML.

procedure UndropTextFormattingTags();

Causes text formatting tags to NOT be dropped from the XML output. Text formatting tags are: b, font, i, u, br, center, em, strong, big, tt, s, small, strike, sub, and sup.

Important: Text formatting tags are dropped by default. Call this method to prevent text formatting tags from being dropped.

function UnlockComponent(unlockCode: WideString): Integer;

Unlocks the component. An arbitrary unlock code may be passed to automatically begin a 30-day trial.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

function WriteFile(filename: WideString, byteData: OleVariant): Integer;

Convenience method for saving a byte array to a file.

function WriteStringToFile(stringToWrite: WideString, filename: WideString, outpuCharset: WideString): Integer;

Convenience method for saving a string to a file. The character encoding of the output text file is specified by outpuCharset (the string is converted to this charset when writing). Valid values, such as "iso-8895-1" or "utf-8" are listed at: List of Charsets.