Question

I’m trying to parse data from the web, basically, from an API (Google Finance API:: http://www.google.com/ig/api?stock=AAPL).

How do I approach this? Could I use XMLDocument to do this or MSXML2?

The XML looks like this

<xml_api_reply version="1">
  <finance module_id="0" tab_id="0" mobile_row="0" mobile_zipped="1" row="0" section="0" >
     <symbol data="AAPL"/>
  </finance>
</xml_api_reply>

I’ve only worked where the node root doesn’t have the name of the thing I need. So, how would I specifically retrieve the data for the node symbol?

This is what I’ve currently got:

Function get_ftseindex()
    Dim objXML As New System.Xml.XmlDocument
    objXML.Load("http://www.google.com/ig/api?stock=UKX")
End Function

Answer 1

You should be able to use an XDocument:

Public Sub Test()
    Dim sAPIUrl As String = "http://www.google.com/ig/api?stock=AAPL"
    Dim oDocument As XDocument = XDocument.Load(sAPIUrl)
    Dim sCompany As String = GetData(oDocument, "company")
    Dim sExchange As String = GetData(oDocument, "exchange")
    Dim dLast As Double = CDbl(GetData(oDocument, "last"))
    Dim dHigh As Double = CDbl(GetData(oDocument, "high"))
    Dim dLow As Double = CDbl(GetData(oDocument, "low"))
End Sub

Private Function GetData(ByVal doc As XDocument, ByVal name As String) As String
    Return doc.Root.Element("finance").Element(name).Attribute("data").Value
End Function