There exists a web page (www.someurl.co.uk) that, amongst other stuff, has inside it a form containing an input field and an image.
In a browser, when the user enters a string in the input field and clicks the image, the form is submitted and another page is generated (www.someurl.co.uk/results.php) containing, amongst other things, a table containing some results.
I need Delphi to fill in the string in the form on the first page, submit the form and get back the contents of a couple of cells from the table on the results page.
I have used the TIdHTTP component to post data to the form using the code below but the text I see in the memo box afterwards is simply the html of the initial page (www.someurl.co.uk).
Please can somebody help me with the correct code to get the the values BlaBla_A, BlaBla_C, BlaBla_C and BlaBla_D from the results page - and to know which is which?
(Although I'm happy with Delphi, I don't know much about web pages and HTML and this is my first time using the Indy component)
This is the code I am using at the moment
procedure TForm1.Button2Click(Sender: TObject);
var
Response: TStringStream;
Params: TStringList;
begin
Params := TStringList.Create;
try
Params.Add('thedata=' + 'MyString');
Response := TStringStream.Create('');
try
IdHTTP1.Post('www.someurl.co.uk', Params, Response);
memo1.Text := Response.DataString;
except
on E: Exception do
begin
showmessage('Error: ' + E.Message);
end;
end;
finally
Params.Free;
Response.Free;
end;
end;
The important bit of the data entry/submit page (www.someurl.co.uk) looks like this
</div>
<h3>Enter the data you want to look for then click FIND</h3>
<form action="results.php" method="post" name="form1" target="_parent"
id="form1"
onsubmit="if (document.getElementById('text').value==''
|| document.getElementById('text').value=='ENTER DATA')
{alert ('Please enter data first then click FIND');
return false;}
else
return true;">
<input name="thedata" type="text" id="text" value="ENTER DATA"
onclick="effectClear(this.id);this.value = '';"
class="validate[required]"/>
<input type="image" src="../images/find.png" name="image" id="homebutton" />
</form>
</div>
and the important bit of the results page (www.someurl.co.uk/results.php) looks like this
<div id="results_details">
<table id="results_details_table" border="0">
<tr>
<td class="result_general"><h2>Here are your results</h2><br/></td>
<td class="result_info">
<label>Result_A</label><br/>BlaBla_A<br/>
<label>Result_B</label><br/>BlaBla_B<br/>
</td>
<td class="result_info">
<label>Result_C</label><br/>BlaBla_C<br/><br/>
<label>Result_D</label><br/>BlaBla_D<br/><br/>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
You are posting your data to this URL, which is wrong:
IdHTTP1.Post('www.someurl.co.uk', Params, Response);
That is why you are getting the initial page back again - that is what you are actually asking for!
You need to post to this URL instead:
IdHTTP1.Post('http://www.someurl.co.uk/results.php', Params, Response);
And BTW, you do not need the TStringStream
at all, Post()
can return the string data for you:
procedure TForm1.Button2Click(Sender: TObject);
var
Params: TStringList;
begin
Params := TStringList.Create;
try
Params.Add('thedata=' + 'MyString');
try
memo1.Text := IdHTTP1.Post('www.someurl.co.uk', Params);
except
on E: Exception do
begin
ShowMessage('Error: ' + E.Message);
end;
end;
finally
Params.Free;
end;
end;