Read nested nodes in XML using Classic ASP

Question

My Classic ASP code connects to a URL and displays XML, my code looks like below

Response.ContentType = "text/xml"

myRSSfile = "http://abc.com"

Set getPage = Server.CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP" )

getPage.Open "GET", myRSSfile, false
getPage.SetRequestHeader "Content-type", "text/xml"
getPage.Send

Response.Write(getPage.responseText)
'response.write getPage.Status

Set getPage = Nothing

XML as follows

<userContent xmlns="http://www.abc.com/userContent" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.abc.com/abc.xsd">
<questions>
<question>
<item>
<sku>SCG20056-006</sku>
<title>Test me machine</title>
</item>
<text>
We are replacing a built in machine how it would be ?
</text>
<dateTime>2011-11-10T22:43:02Z</dateTime>
<answer>
<user>
<firstName>Raj</firstName>
<lastName>lastname</lastName>
</user>
<text>
We have been very happpy with the replacement
</text>
<dateTime>2011-11-21T21:00:24Z</dateTime>
</answer>
<answer>
<user>
<firstName>john</firstName>
<lastName>wright</lastName>
</user>
<text>
not so happy
</text>
<dateTime>2011-11-21T21:00:24Z</dateTime>
</answer>
</question>
</questions>
<comments/>
</userContent>

What i need to do is display
1) "questions/question/text" Tag
2) Display all the answers to that question that is this tag
"questions/question/answer/user/firstName" Tag
& 3) "questions/question/answer/text" Tag
Is it possible to do in Classic ASP?

AnthonyWJones · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-25T16:10:32.200

The approach to take with this is to use XSL to perform a transform on the received XML to generate the HTML you would like to display. Here is a sample to get you started:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
    xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
    xmlns:uc="http://www.abc.com/userContent" exclude-result-prefixes="uc">

  <xsl:output method="html" />

  <xsl:template match="/uc:userContent">
    <div class="container">
      <xsl:apply-templates select="uc:questions/uc:question" />
    </div>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="uc:question">
    <b>Shopper asked:</b> <xsl:value-of select="uc:text" />
    <ul>
      <xsl:apply-templates select="uc:answer" />
    </ul>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="uc:answer">
    <li>
      <b>
        <xsl:value-of select="uc:user/uc:firstName" />
        <xsl:text> </xsl:text>
        <xsl:value-of select="uc:user/uc:lastName" />:
      </b>
      <xsl:value-of select="uc:text" />
    </li>
  </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

You would place this xsl in a file called for example "userContent.xsl" somewhere in you web site, for ease of example we'll put it in the root.

Now we need to tidy your code:

<%
Option Explicit 
Dim myRSSFile: myRSSfile = "http://abc.com"     

Dim getPage: Set getPage = Server.CreateObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTPServer.3.0" )     

getPage.Open "GET", myRSSfile, false        
getPage.Send     

Dim dom : dom = getPage.responseXml     
Dim xsl : Set xsl = CreateObject("MSXML2.DOMDocument.3.0")

xsl.async = false
xsl.load Server.MapPath("/userContent.xsl")

%>
<html>
   <head>
       <title>Some Content</title>
   </head>
   <body>
     <%
         Response.Write dom.TransformNode(xsl)
     %>
   </body>
</html>

Notes:

Don't use XMLHTTP in ASP it isn't designed to be used in a Server.
There is no need to send a content type header in xml http request when you aren't sending any content.
When you want to manipulate XML received use the responseXml property which gives you a loaded XML Document to play with rather than the responseText. (Certainly don't use RegEx to do it).
Always include Option Explicit in your scripts it will save you bags of time hunting bugs.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 25 '11 at 13:09

I was able to do this using the following finally, thanks guys for all your help

<%
Dim objxml
Set objxml = Server.CreateObject("MSXML2.FreeThreadedDOMDocument")
objxml.async = False
objXML.setProperty "ServerHTTPRequest", True
objxml.load("http://abc.com")
set ElemUserContent=objxml.getElementsByTagName("userContent")
set ElemQuestion=objxml.getElementsByTagName("userContent/questions/question/text")
set ElemAnswer=objxml.getElementsByTagName("userContent/questions/question/answer")
set ElemFirstName=objxml.getElementsByTagName("userContent/questions/question/answer/user/firstName")
set ElemLastName=objxml.getElementsByTagName("userContent/questions/question/answer/user/lastName")
set ElemAnswerText=objxml.getElementsByTagName("userContent/questions/question/answer/text")
for x=0 to ElemUserContent.length-1
response.Write("<b>A Shopper Asked:</b>  "&ElemQuestion.item(x).text)
response.Write("<ul>")
for i=0 to ElemAnswer.length-1
response.write("<li><b>"&ElemFirstName.item(i).text&" "&left(ElemLastName.item(i).text,1)&":</b> ")
response.Write(ElemAnswerText.item(i).text&"</li>")
next
response.Write("</ul>")
next
%>

Does it need to work when the there is more than one question or did you really intend to repeat __all__ answers for __all__ questions under each question? — AnthonyWJones, Nov 25 '11 at 16:04
I've tweaked my answer to generate your output. Nearly always getElementsByTagName is a poor solution to this sort of thing. — AnthonyWJones, Nov 25 '11 at 16:13

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

0

It's certainly possible.

I'd try to do it with regular expressions.

To work out the expression there are lots of online tools.

edit: classic asp can handle xml documents (I incorrectly thought it had to remain as text, to be parsed) This example: Traverse XML document using asp should help you and is a much better solution than the reg ex option I offered (without totally thinking it through - soz)

edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

Community

1
1

answered Nov 25 '11 at 11:25

Neil Thompson

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I want to read elements of XML, how regular expression would help ? Because i know regular expression is used to match the contents not read all elements of XML ? – user580950 Nov 25 '11 at 11:37
you could use regex to match all the answer.texts for a question, for example – Neil Thompson Nov 25 '11 at 11:58
Do not use Regular Expressions for this task, yikes! – AnthonyWJones Nov 25 '11 at 12:07
I agree. I didn't realise you could construct an XML document with classic asp. I did update the 'answer' to hopefully reflect that. – Neil Thompson Nov 25 '11 at 12:27

Read nested nodes in XML using Classic ASP

3 Answers3

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