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.NET Forum / .NET Framework / New Users / December 2007How to perform XPath queries on HTML?
JTidy is a java library that will populate an XML DOM from an HTML string. The XML DOM has XPATH. Is there a similar library for C# and VB.NET programers that will allow me to perform XPATH queries on HTML? Also, what is the name of the HTTP client that will allow me to fetch the HTML from a web site? thanks, Siegfried You can only perform XPath operations on XML, so, by definition, it can't be used with HTML. But, if you have XHTML, then you can simply load up an XMLDomDocument with this XHTML and use XPath on it that. -Scott > JTidy is a java library that will populate an XML DOM from an HTML string. > The XML DOM has XPATH. Is there a similar library for C# and VB.NET [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > thanks, > Siegfried > You can only perform XPath operations on XML, so, by definition, it can't be > used with HTML. A handy thing about the XPathNavigator class in .NET is that if you can implement it (i.e. derive and implement its abstract methods) for your arbitrary tree-shaped data structure, then you can query it using XPath. -- Barry  Signaturehttp://barrkel.blogspot.com/ But, since HTML may not be a well-formed tree structure, wouldn't you have problems querying it? >> You can only perform XPath operations on XML, so, by definition, it can't >> be [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > -- Barry > But, since HTML may not be a well-formed tree structure, wouldn't you have > problems querying it? Like I said earlier, HtmlAgilityPack uses a very lenient but deterministic HTML parser. It can make a tree out of just about any source HTML; as long as the XPath query works on one instance of the server side's generated HTML (assuming it's generated otherwise why automate the querying?), then it should work on subsequent instances. In other words, even if the HTML is malformed and results in a non-compliant tree, the formation of the tree itself is deterministic and so it ought to be consistently queryable. -- Barry Signaturehttp://barrkel.blogspot.com/ > JTidy is a java library that will populate an XML DOM from an HTML string. > The XML DOM has XPATH. Is there a similar library for C# and VB.NET > programers that will allow me to perform XPATH queries on HTML? Use HtmlAgilityPack. It has a basic, lenient HTML parser and implements IXPathNavigable and a basic DOM, so it can be searched using an XPath. http://www.codeplex.com/htmlagilitypack > Also, what is the name of the HTTP client that will allow me to fetch the > HTML from a web site? WebRequest & WebResponse should be able to do this for you, no? Do you have more specific questions about WebRequest.Create / etc? -- Barry Signaturehttp://barrkel.blogspot.com/ Free MagazinesGet these publications absolutely FREE for up to 12 months. There are no hidden fees and no obligation. Simply choose a title, complete the application form and submit it. Read more ...
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