Automatic web data query/extraction

Hi All,

I'm not too sure whether this is even feasible, so am just throwing this out there to get some opinions.

My understanding is that Excel can be used to download information off websites automatically, through web queries and iqy files. I am wondering whether it would be possible to use this, or any other method, to extract information automatically off the webpage?

For example, for the following website, I would need to key in postcodes manually in order to return store locations.

http://www.guardianpharmacies.com.au...store-locator/

Would there be a way to set up excel such that it does it automatically?

Thanks in advance, help is much appreciated!

Best Regards,
John

Hi MarvinP,

Thanks for the welcome and apologies for my late reply! I was under the assumption that I'd be sent a notification when someone did reply, maybe I was mistaken.

I'm not too good with syntax/code, but from my understanding of the steps in that link you posted, it does seem that it can be adapted for my purposes.

From my reading of other threads, I think it might be feasible for excel to autofill forms, through it's integration with IE. Broadly, the steps seem to be as follows:

1. From base url, use a html element inspecter (Chrome has one native to it) to find the user text input box division (e.g. <input type="text" name="pc" value="3042 " class="itext02">)

2. Have a list of inputs that you want to iterate through sitting in excel.

3. Iterating through each input in turn (probably a macro), ask excel to send the input to the input box division at the url, through a url call, as a POST request, and submit the information to the url.

4. Have some way to filter the returned data, which can be something like tags (e.g. <div>, or class = "address"), or even using the find function to filter out what is needed (e.g. find=address?)

5. Reset loop, and iterate through next input item.

Apologies if this doesn't make sense, I'm just throwing out ideas here. Could anyone verify whether the steps above make sense, and if possible help formalize it into functional code?

I was using the following links as reference:

http://www.excely.com/excel-vba/ie-automation.shtml

http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/showthread.php?t=482148

Thank you and help is much appreciated!