Why doesn't MSHTML for .Net have querySelector and querySelectorAll, or where are they?

Question

I want to use MSHTML [1] to access DOM in IE, but I have just found out that it lacks querySelector and querySelectorAll methods in HTML document classes, which will otherwi

Answer 1

Yesterday I notice the same problem, I found a solution.

The Next example code works for me:

Document.querySelectorAll("#navbar_search>a").item(0).click();

If i try to do "the same", but with this code, it fails:

HTMLDocument doc;
doc = ie.Document;
doc.querySelectorAll("#navbar_search>a").item(0).click();

I'm not a COM expert but I thing the first solution is a late binding (dependences are resolved at run-time), while the second solution is a compliler-time binding and it depends on a 'good' predefined libary and that's not the case with mshtml.

Answer 2

The querySelector() method and friends are alive and well in MSHtml and the IE DOM, the problem is that the PIA that most programmers have on their machine is heavily outdated. The one registered in the GAC on my machine carries a 7.0.3300.0 version number, that dates back to 2002.

There is a workaround for that, you can generate your own interop library and avoid the one in the GAC. The trick is to intentionally generate a mismatch by creating an interop assembly without a strong name so it cannot match the one in the GAC. Be sure to do this only on VS2010 or later, you want to take advantage of the Embed Interop Types feature.

Start the Visual Studio Command Prompt and navigate to your project directory. And execute this command:

  Tlbimp c:\windows\system32\mshtml.tlb

It will trundle for a handful of minutes, the type library is very large, and spit out several icky looking warnings that you can ignore. Go back to VS, remove the existing MSHTML reference and use Add Reference, Browse tab. Pick the MSHTML.dll file that was generated by Tlbimp.

Do keep in mind that you now use an interop library that is compatible with the IE version that you have on your machine. Not necessarily the version your user has, so technically it is possible for your program to fail. You'd have to be very unlucky.