Question

I can retrieve the contents of a webpage into a variable like:

x = objIE.Document.body.outerHTML

But during development (data parse), I don’t want to keep pulling up a live site and instead just want to store some sample html in a format that can be placed in a variable. The issue is that trying to directly place a raw html sample into a variable creates errors and would require going through and escaping quotes etc. What’s an easy way to put place a large block of sample html in a variable?

Answer 1

You could read the html into a string variable using IO.StreamReader

    Dim docStuff As String
    Dim strReader As IO.StreamReader
    Dim strWriter As IO.StreamWriter

    strReader = New IO.StreamReader(Application.StartupPath & "/me.html")
    docStuff = strReader.ReadToEnd
    strReader.Close()

then write it back out using IO.StreamWriter

    strWriter = New IO.StreamWriter(Application.StartupPath & "/changedCode.html")
    strWriter.Write(docStuff)
    strWriter.Close()

I have never had issues with this method with escape characters, etc. I pull it in, then I can look at the code, make changes, etc. Works like a charm.