I recently received the following question in my mailbox yesterday: Is it possible to retrieve the text of a page without physically opening it?

Yes, it’s possible to retrieve the document text without physically opening the page. It can be done though an XMLHTTP Request. XMLHTTP is short for Extensible Markup Language HyperText Transfer Protocol. “The XMLHttpRequest object implements an interface exposed by a scripting engine that allows scripts to perform HTTP client functionality, such as submitting form data or loading data from a server.”¹

In the snippet below, I’ve created a simple mechanism to retrieve server response from this blog. The ‘OPEN’ method is used to assign a method (GET, POST, HEAD) of the pending request. The ‘SEND’ method sends the request (as detailed in the Open method) to the server.

Dim oXMLHTTP
Set oXMLHTTP = CreateObject( "Microsoft.XMLHttp" )
 
With oXMLHTTP
    .open "GET", "http://www.relevantcodes.blogspot.com", False
    .send
 
    Reporter.ReportEvent micInfo, "Status", .statusText
    Reporter.ReportEvent micInfo, "Response", .responseText
End with
 
Set oXMLHTTP = Nothing

XMLHTTP Request Status

XMLHTTP Request Response

References

1. The XMLHTTPRequest Object
2. The XMLHTTPRequest Object

If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments section. If your query is confidential, please use the Contact Form to send me an e-mail instead.

Tagged as: Get, Post, QTP XMLHTTP, VBScript, VBScript XMLHTTP, XMLHTTP