POST website form data and retrieve results

Question

I have been trying to write a VBA code to copy these three tables as shown in the web source code below. These tables show monthly weather data. Could someone please help me

Answer 1

It is unclear on what method you are using to access the web page but here is an XMLHTTP example that loops through all tables of a web page and returns the cell values to Sheet1.

Dim htmlBDY As HTMLDocument, xmlHTTP As New MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP60
Dim iTD As Long, iTR As Long, iTBL As Long, eTR As MSHTML.IHTMLElement, ecTRs As IHTMLElementCollection
xmlHTTP.Open "POST", "https://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/sse/grid.cgi", False
xmlHTTP.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
'this post string uses the sample data on the form page. You can concatenate a string var to do the same thing
xmlHTTP.send "email=skip@larc.nasa.gov&step=1&lat=33.5&lon=-80.75"

Set htmlBDY = New HTMLDocument
htmlBDY.body.innerHTML = xmlHTTP.responseText

If CBool(htmlBDY.getElementsByTagName("table").Length) Then
    For iTBL = 0 To (htmlBDY.getElementsByTagName("table").Length - 1)
        Set ecTRs = htmlBDY.getElementsByTagName("table")(iTBL).getElementsByTagName("tr")
        For iTR = 0 To (ecTRs.Length - 1)
            If CBool(ecTRs(iTR).getElementsByTagName("th").Length) Then
                For iTD = 0 To (ecTRs(iTR).getElementsByTagName("th").Length - 1)
                    Sheet1.Cells(iTR + 1, iTD + 1) = ecTRs(iTR).getElementsByTagName("th")(iTD).innerText
                Next iTD
            ElseIf CBool(ecTRs(iTR).getElementsByTagName("td").Length) Then
                For iTD = 0 To (ecTRs(iTR).getElementsByTagName("td").Length - 1)
                    Sheet1.Cells(iTR + 1, iTD + 1) = ecTRs(iTR).getElementsByTagName("td")(iTD).innerText
                Next iTD
            End If
        Next iTR
        Set ecTRs = Nothing
    Next iTBL
End If

Set htmlBDY = Nothing
Set xmlHTTP = Nothing

I am using the XMLHTTP method to POST the form data into the CGI form. It is unlikely that you will be able to get to the page directly with a browser-based method. An InternetExplorer.Application method would likely have to go to the form, fill it in and submit it to get to the same page. Besides, the overhead (and time) of loading a browser object is huge compared to XMLHTTP.

    

You will need to go through Tools ► References and add Microsoft internet Controls, Microsoft HTML Object library and Microsoft XML 6.0 to your project.

Note that I am checking for both <th> and <td> elements within the <tr>'s. There could conceivably be at least one more level of error control but I've never really seen any <table> that did not have at least one <tr>.