Chilkat VB.NET HtmlToXml Class Reference

HtmlToXml

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

Properties

DropCustomTags As Boolean

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

Html As String

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.

LastErrorHtml As String (ReadOnly)

Error information in HTML format for the last method called.

LastErrorText As String (ReadOnly)

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

LastErrorXml As String (ReadOnly)

Error information in XML format for the last method called.

Nbsp As 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.

Version As String (ReadOnly)

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

XmlCharset As String

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(ByVal inHtmlFilename As String, ByVal outXmlFilename As String) As Boolean

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

Sub DropTagType(ByVal tagName As String)

Allows for any specified tag to be dropped from the output XML.

Sub 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() As Boolean

Returns true if the component is already unlocked. Otherwise returns false.

Function ReadFile(ByVal filename As String) As Byte()

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

Returns Nothing on failure

Function ReadFileToString(ByVal filename As String, ByVal srcCharset As String) As String

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 Nothing on failure

Function SaveLastError(ByVal filename As String) As Boolean

Saves the last error information to an XML formatted file.

Sub SetHtmlBytes(ByVal inData As Byte())

Sets the Html property from a byte array.

Function SetHtmlFromFile(ByVal filename As String) As Boolean

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

Function ToXml() As String

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

Returns Nothing on failure

Sub UndropTagType(ByVal tagName As String)

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

Sub 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(ByVal unlockCode As String) As Boolean

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

Returns true for success, false for failure.

Function WriteFile(ByVal filename As String, ByVal fileData As Byte()) As Boolean

Convenience method for saving a byte array to a file.

Function WriteStringToFile(ByVal str As String, ByVal filename As String, ByVal charset As String) As Boolean

Convenience method for saving a string to a file.