Question

I would like to parse a webpage to get the content of a table on that page. However, the table is created by calling document.write() and several javascript functions. i.e. when I load the URL request of that page, the source that I get contains no html tags of that table. Is it possible to get the source of the final page (i.e. the source containing the html tags of the table I want)? And it’s very curious that I can view the “final page source” in safari Browser’s Developer Tools but not the source of the page.
this is the source of the page the source

Answer 1

You should use implement the NSConnectionDataDelegate protocol and use the NSConnection class. I believe that by the time -(void) connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection is called, the page has finished loading completely.

-(void) requestPage
{
    NSString *urlString = @"http://the.page.you.want.com";
    NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:urlString];

    NSMutableURLRequest *request = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:url cachePolicy:NSURLCacheStorageAllowed timeoutInterval:20.0f];


    responseData = [[NSMutableData alloc] init];
    connection = [[NSURLConnection connectionWithRequest:request delegate:self] retain];
    delegate = target;
}


-(void) connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveResponse:(NSURLResponse *)response
{   
    if ([response isKindOfClass:[NSHTTPURLResponse class]])
    {
        NSHTTPURLResponse *httpResponse = (NSHTTPURLResponse*) response; 
        //If you need the response, you can use it here
    }
}

-(void) connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data
{
    [responseData appendData:data];
}

-(void) connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didFailWithError:(NSError *)error
{
    [responseData release];
    [connection release];
}

-(void) connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection
{
    if (connection == adCheckConnection)
    {
        NSString *responseString = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:responseData encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

        //You've got all the data now
        //Do something with your response string


        [responseString release];
    }

    [responseData release];
    [connection release];
}