Question

What is the difference between:

Msxml2.DOMDocument
Msxml2.XMLHTTP

? And of course, the other question is which one will work best for my purpose as described below?

The context is this – I have code that makes many calls to retrieve web pages. I am looking for the most efficient object for this task. For example, something like this:

Dim oXmlHttp : Set oXmlHttp = CreateObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP")

oXmlHttp.Open "GET", sUri, False
oXmlHttp.Send
If Err Then
    getWebPage = "ERROR - could not get the source text of the webpage."
    Exit Function
End If
sResponse = oXmlHttp.responseBody

This seems to work the same way if I create an object using:

Dim oXmlHttp : Set oXmlHttp = CreateObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP")

Can anyone explain or point me to a reference that clearly outlines the differences (and intended usages) for each of those?

Answer 1

If you want to learn more about MSXML, these links may help:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa468547.aspx
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms766487(v=vs.85).aspx

In short, XMLHTTP is used to retrieve information, while DOMDocument is used to structure and parse it.

This page explains it better: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms760218(v=vs.85).aspx

DOMDocument “Represents the top node of the XML DOM tree.” while XMLHTTP “Provides client-side protocol support for communication with HTTP servers.”