Question

I am creating a mass username availability checker for a forum but when the timers are set to a high speed it sometimes says a username is available for the forum when it’s unavailable.

How can I ensure it’s checked the username properly before it skips to the next username in my listbox?

Example of my code:

// Timer1
timer1.Stop();
webBrowser1.Document.GetElementById("username").InnerText = list.SelectedItem.ToString();
webBrowser1.Document.GetElementById("register").InvokeMember("Click");   
list.SelectedIndex = list.SelectedIndex + 1;
timer2.Start();

// Timer2
timer2.Stop();
if (webBrowser1.Document.GetElementById("status").ToString().Contains("available"))
        {
            list2.Items.Add(list.SelectedItem.ToString());

            timer1.Start();
        }
        else
        {

            timer1.Start();
        }

Could I use WatiN or something to ensure it waits for it to check the availability of a username before it skips to the next tag? The page does not reload.

Answer 1

You can poll the page content contains X or Y, then continue. I’m assuming here that the page will display “available” or “sorry, pick something else” message. If you don’t have a yes/no status displayed, this is going to be tougher.

Something like the following: This is not tested code, just a rough idea of types of things I’ve done in scenarios like yours.

int maxWaitTime = 5000
int timeWaited = 0
int interval

while (!status.text.contains("available")) && !status.text.contains("pick something else") && timewaited < maxWaitTime)
{
    Thread.Sleep(X)
    timeWaited += interval;   //Add X miliseconds.
}

if (timeWaited >= maxWaitTime)
{
    throw new TimeoutException("Took too long to get a status")
}