HtmlToXml Delphi DLL Reference Documentation

HtmlToXml

Current Version: 10.1.0

Requires Chilkat Bundle License

Class for converting HTML to well-formed XML for the purpose of programmatically extracting (scraping) information from any HTML page.

Create/Dispose

var
myObject: HCkHtmlToXml;

begin
myObject := CkHtmlToXml_Create();

// ...

CkHtmlToXml_Dispose(myObject);
end;

function CkHtmlToXml_Create: HCkHtmlToXml; stdcall;

Creates an instance of the HCkHtmlToXml object and returns a handle (i.e. a Pointer). The handle is passed in the 1st argument for the functions listed on this page.

procedure CkHtmlToXml_Dispose(handle: HCkHtmlToXml); stdcall;

Objects created by calling CkHtmlToXml_Create must be freed by calling this method. A memory leak occurs if a handle is not disposed by calling this function.

Properties

DebugLogFilePath

procedure CkHtmlToXml_getDebugLogFilePath(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml; outPropVal: HCkString); stdcall;
procedure CkHtmlToXml_putDebugLogFilePath(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml; newPropVal: PWideChar); stdcall;
function CkHtmlToXml__debugLogFilePath(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml): PWideChar; stdcall;

If set to a file path, causes each Chilkat method or property call to automatically append it's LastErrorText to the specified log file. The information is appended such that if a hang or crash occurs, it is possible to see the context in which the problem occurred, as well as a history of all Chilkat calls up to the point of the problem. The VerboseLogging property can be set to provide more detailed information.

This property is typically used for debugging the rare cases where a Chilkat method call hangs or generates an exception that halts program execution (i.e. crashes). A hang or crash should generally never happen. The typical causes of a hang are:

a timeout related property was set to 0 to explicitly indicate that an infinite timeout is desired,
the hang is actually a hang within an event callback (i.e. it is a hang within the application code), or
there is an internal problem (bug) in the Chilkat code that causes the hang.

See the notes about PWideChar memory ownership and validity.

More Information and Examples

Example showing how to use DebugLogFilePath.

DropCustomTags

function CkHtmlToXml_getDropCustomTags(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml): wordbool; stdcall;
procedure CkHtmlToXml_putDropCustomTags(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml; newPropVal: wordbool); stdcall;

If set to true, then any non-standard HTML tags will be dropped when converting to XML.

Html

procedure CkHtmlToXml_getHtml(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml; outPropVal: HCkString); stdcall;
procedure CkHtmlToXml_putHtml(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml; newPropVal: PWideChar); stdcall;
function CkHtmlToXml__html(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml): PWideChar; stdcall;

The HTML to be converted by the ToXml method. To convert HTML to XML, first set this property to the HTML string and then call ToXml. The ConvertFile method can do file-to-file conversions.

See the notes about PWideChar memory ownership and validity.

LastErrorHtml

procedure CkHtmlToXml_getLastErrorHtml(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml; outPropVal: HCkString); stdcall;
function CkHtmlToXml__lastErrorHtml(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml): PWideChar; stdcall;

Provides information in HTML format about the last method/property called. If a method call returns a value indicating failure, or behaves unexpectedly, examine this property to get more information.

See the notes about PWideChar memory ownership and validity.

LastErrorText

procedure CkHtmlToXml_getLastErrorText(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml; outPropVal: HCkString); stdcall;
function CkHtmlToXml__lastErrorText(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml): PWideChar; stdcall;

Provides information in plain-text format about the last method/property called. If a method call returns a value indicating failure, or behaves unexpectedly, examine this property to get more information.

See the notes about PWideChar memory ownership and validity.

More Information and Examples

Concept of LastErrorText LastErrorText Standard Information

LastErrorXml

procedure CkHtmlToXml_getLastErrorXml(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml; outPropVal: HCkString); stdcall;
function CkHtmlToXml__lastErrorXml(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml): PWideChar; stdcall;

Provides information in XML format about the last method/property called. If a method call returns a value indicating failure, or behaves unexpectedly, examine this property to get more information.

See the notes about PWideChar memory ownership and validity.

LastMethodSuccess

function CkHtmlToXml_getLastMethodSuccess(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml): wordbool; stdcall;
procedure CkHtmlToXml_putLastMethodSuccess(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml; newPropVal: wordbool); stdcall;

Indicate whether the last method call succeeded or failed. A value of True indicates success, a value of False indicates failure. This property is automatically set for method calls. It is not modified by property accesses. The property is automatically set to indicate success for the following types of method calls:

Any method that returns a string.
Any method returning a Chilkat object, binary bytes, or a date/time.
Any method returning a standard boolean status value where success = True and failure = False.
Any method returning an integer where failure is defined by a return value less than zero.

Note: Methods that do not fit the above requirements will always set this property equal to True. For example, a method that returns no value (such as a "void" in C++) will technically always succeed.

Nbsp

function CkHtmlToXml_getNbsp(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml): Integer; stdcall;
procedure CkHtmlToXml_putNbsp(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml; newPropVal: Integer); stdcall;

Determines how to handle HTML entities. The default value, 0 will cause   entites to be convert to normal space characters (ASCII value 32). If this property is set to 1, then  's will be converted to &#160. If set to 2, then &nbps;'s are dropped. If set to 3, then &nbsp's are left unmodified.

VerboseLogging

function CkHtmlToXml_getVerboseLogging(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml): wordbool; stdcall;
procedure CkHtmlToXml_putVerboseLogging(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml; newPropVal: wordbool); stdcall;

If set to True, then the contents of LastErrorText (or LastErrorXml, or LastErrorHtml) may contain more verbose information. The default value is False. Verbose logging should only be used for debugging. The potentially large quantity of logged information may adversely affect peformance.

Version

procedure CkHtmlToXml_getVersion(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml; outPropVal: HCkString); stdcall;
function CkHtmlToXml__version(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml): PWideChar; stdcall;

Version of the component/library, such as "9.5.0.94"

See the notes about PWideChar memory ownership and validity.

More Information and Examples

How to get the Chilkat version at runtime.

XmlCharset

procedure CkHtmlToXml_getXmlCharset(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml; outPropVal: HCkString); stdcall;
procedure CkHtmlToXml_putXmlCharset(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml; newPropVal: PWideChar); stdcall;
function CkHtmlToXml__xmlCharset(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml): PWideChar; stdcall;

The charset, such as "utf-8" or "iso-8859-1" of the XML to be created. If XmlCharset is empty, the XML is created in the same character encoding as the HTML. Otherwise the HTML is converted XML and converted to this charset.

See the notes about PWideChar memory ownership and validity.

Methods

ConvertFile

function CkHtmlToXml_ConvertFile(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml;
inHtmlPath: PWideChar;
destXmlPath: PWideChar): wordbool; stdcall;

Converts an HTML file to a well-formed XML file that can be parsed for the purpose of programmatically extracting information.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

DropTagType

procedure CkHtmlToXml_DropTagType(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml;
tagName: PWideChar) stdcall;

Allows for any specified tag to be dropped from the output XML. To drop more than one tag, call this method once for each tag type to be dropped.

DropTextFormattingTags

procedure CkHtmlToXml_DropTextFormattingTags(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml) stdcall;

Causes text formatting tags to be dropped from the XML output. Text formatting tags are: b, font, i, u, br, center, em, strong, big, tt, s, small, strike, sub, and sup.

More Information and Examples

Drop/Undrop Text Formatting Tags

ReadFile

function CkHtmlToXml_ReadFile(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml;
path: PWideChar;
outBytes: HCkByteData): wordbool; stdcall;

Convenience method for reading a complete file into a byte array.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

ReadFileToString

function CkHtmlToXml_ReadFileToString(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml;
    filename: PWideChar;
    srcCharset: PWideChar;
    outStr: HCkString): wordbool; stdcall;
function CkHtmlToXml__readFileToString(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml;
    filename: PWideChar;
    srcCharset: PWideChar): PWideChar; stdcall;

Convenience method for reading a text file into a string. The character encoding of the text file is specified by srcCharset. Valid values, such as "iso-8895-1" or "utf-8" are listed at: List of Charsets.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

See the notes about PWideChar memory ownership and validity.

SetHtmlBd

function CkHtmlToXml_SetHtmlBd(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml;
bd: HCkBinData): wordbool; stdcall;

Introduced in version 9.5.0.77

Sets the Html property from the contents of bd.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

More Information and Examples

HTML Table to CSV

SetHtmlBytes

procedure CkHtmlToXml_SetHtmlBytes(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml;
inData: HCkByteData) stdcall;

Sets the Html property from a byte array.

SetHtmlFromFile

function CkHtmlToXml_SetHtmlFromFile(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml;
filename: PWideChar): wordbool; stdcall;

Sets the Html property by loading the HTML from a file.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

SetHtmlSb

function CkHtmlToXml_SetHtmlSb(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml;
sb: HCkStringBuilder): wordbool; stdcall;

Introduced in version 9.5.0.97

Sets the Html property from the contents of sb.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

ToXml

function CkHtmlToXml_ToXml(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml;
outStr: HCkString): wordbool; stdcall;
function CkHtmlToXml__toXml(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml): PWideChar; stdcall;

Converts the HTML in the "Html" property to XML and returns the XML string.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

See the notes about PWideChar memory ownership and validity.

More Information and Examples

Convert an HTML Table to Plain-Text

ToXmlSb

function CkHtmlToXml_ToXmlSb(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml;
sb: HCkStringBuilder): wordbool; stdcall;

Introduced in version 9.5.0.77

Converts the HTML in the "Html" property to XML and appends the XML to sb.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

More Information and Examples

HTML Table to CSV

UndropTagType

procedure CkHtmlToXml_UndropTagType(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml;
tagName: PWideChar) stdcall;

Causes a specified type of tag to NOT be dropped in the output XML.

UndropTextFormattingTags

procedure CkHtmlToXml_UndropTextFormattingTags(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml) stdcall;

Causes text formatting tags to NOT be dropped from the XML output. Text formatting tags are: b, font, i, u, br, center, em, strong, big, tt, s, small, strike, sub, and sup.

Important: Text formatting tags are dropped by default. Call this method to prevent text formatting tags from being dropped.

More Information and Examples

Drop/Undrop Text Formatting Tags

WriteFile

function CkHtmlToXml_WriteFile(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml;
path: PWideChar;
fileData: HCkByteData): wordbool; stdcall;

Convenience method for saving a byte array to a file.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

WriteStringToFile

function CkHtmlToXml_WriteStringToFile(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml;
    stringToWrite: PWideChar;
    filename: PWideChar;
    charset: PWideChar): wordbool; stdcall;

Convenience method for saving a string to a file. The character encoding of the output text file is specified by charset (the string is converted to this charset when writing). Valid values, such as "iso-8895-1" or "utf-8" are listed at: List of Charsets.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

Xml

function CkHtmlToXml_Xml(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml;
outStr: HCkString): wordbool; stdcall;
function CkHtmlToXml__xml(objHandle: HCkHtmlToXml): PWideChar; stdcall;

This is the same as the "ToXml" method. It converts the HTML in the "Html" property to XML and returns the XML string.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

See the notes about PWideChar memory ownership and validity.