Question Downloading a CSV file

glucobear · Oct 20, 2011

Hi. I have been trying to figure out how to do this for the past two days..

Please help.

I want to download a file from a financial site. When I paste the URL in a browser, the file is downloaded. However, when I use webClient.DownloadFile or even HTTPPosts...it returns an html page not the csv file. Please lead me to the right direction. Thank you very much.

jmcilhinney · Oct 20, 2011

Presumably the URL is for a page that tells the browser to download the file. No browser means no download. Perhaps you could provide us with the URL so we don't have to guess.

glucobear · Oct 20, 2011

The site is on this line of code.

Dim wr As HttpWebRequest = DirectCast(WebRequest.Create("http://www.barchart.com/historicaldata.php?file=dstk&date=102011"), HttpWebRequest)

I supplied the necessary credentials (as the site needs me to login).

On the download page, I only need to click on a link to download the CSV. Pasting the above-mentioned URL works fine as well.
But when I do it through an app, it returns HTML. I'm stumped.

jmcilhinney · Oct 21, 2011

That URL is obviously not a CSV file but a PHP script. What exactly does the content look like that you receive when you execute that code?

glucobear · Oct 21, 2011

Before I proceed, may I say thank you for replying to my questions. Really appreciate it.

Here's what I get -

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="IE=8" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="600">
<meta name="description" content="My Barchart Login: Access your free Stocks and Commodities Portfolios, Screeners, Historical Data, Chart Builder, Advanced Technicals and more" />
<meta name="keywords" content="barchart, barcharts, login, futures, stocks, forex, etfs, mutual funds, register, free account, free membership, free registration, My Barchart, portfolios, screeners, historical data, technical analysis, charts, quotes" />
<meta name="robots" content="all,follow" />
<meta name="rating" content="Safe for Kids" />
<link rel="meta" href="/shared/rdf/labels.rdf" type="application/rdf+xml" title="ICRA labels" />
<meta http-equiv="pics-Label" content='(pics-1.1 "http://www.icra.org/pics/vocabularyv03/" l gen true for "http://www.barchart.com" r (n 0 s 0 v 0 l 0 oa 0 ob 0 oc 0 od 0 oe 0 of 0 og 0 oh 0 c 0) gen true for "http://www.www.barchart.com" r (n 0 s 0 v 0 l 0 oa 0 ob 0 oc 0 od 0 oe 0 of 0 og 0 oh 0 c 0))' />
<title> My Barchart - Registration | My Barchart Login</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/shared/css/style.css" type="text/css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/shared/css/autocomplete.css" type="text/css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/shared/css/print.css" type="text/css" media="print" />




<link rel="stylesheet" href="/shared/js/protomultiselect/test.css" type="text/css" />

<script type="text/javascript" src="/shared/js/thirdpartyfunctions.js"></script>


<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/prototype/1.7.0.0/prototype.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/scriptaculous/1.8.3/scriptaculous.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="/shared/js/com.barchart.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">

var Barchart = {
Content : [],
Highlights : new com.barchart.QuoteHighlights(),
InitObjects : [],
Page : {},

Init : function() {
Barchart.Data.DataMaster = new com.barchart.DataMaster();

for (var k in Barchart.Content) {
var c = Barchart.Content[k];
if (c.Init)
c.Init();
}

for (var i = 0; i < Barchart.InitObjects.length; i++) {
Barchart.InitObjects.Init();
}

if (Barchart.Page.Init)
Barchart.Page.Init();

Barchart.Data.DataMaster.start();
Barchart.Stubs.DisplayAds();

},

Site : {},

User : {
username : null,
Views : {
}
}
};

Barchart.Data = {
DataMaster : null
};

Barchart.Stubs = {
Symbol : 'null',

ReturnSearchLocation: function(symbol) {
var type = 'stocks';
if (symbol.substr(0,1) == '^')
type = 'forex';
else if (symbol.length == 5 && symbol.substr(-1) == 'X')
type = 'funds';
else if (symbol.match(/^[a-zA-Z].*[0-9]$/))
type = 'futures';

var locate = document.URL.replace(/(\n|\r)+$/, ''); //clear begin/end whitespace

if (locate.match(/.php/gi) && !locate.match(/lookup|historical|allrates|sectors\/finder/gi)) {
var urlPart = locate.split('?');
if (urlPart[1] != null){
var queryAttrValPair = urlPart[1].split('&');
var symVal = queryAttrValPair[0].split('=');
if (symVal[0] == 'sym'){
symVal[1] = symbol;
var assembledUrl = urlPart[0] + '?' + symVal[0] + '=' + symVal[1];
for (i=0; i < queryAttrValPair.length; i++)
if (i)
assembledUrl += '&' + queryAttrValPair;
document.location.href = assembledUrl;
}
else
document.location.href = '/quotes/' + type + '/' + symbol;
}
else
document.location.href = '/quotes/' + type + '/' + symbol;
}
else {
if (locate.match(/\/opinions/gi))
document.location.href = '/opinions/' + type + '/' + symbol;
else if (locate.match(/\/snapopinion/gi))
document.location.href = '/snapopinion/' + type + '/' + symbol;
else if (locate.match(/\/performance/gi))
document.location.href = '/performance/' + type + '/' + symbol;
else if (locate.match(/\/technicals/gi))
document.location.href = '/technicals/' + type + '/' + symbol;
else if (locate.match(/\/detailedquote/gi))
document.location.href = '/detailedquote/' + type + '/' + symbol;

jmcilhinney · Oct 21, 2011

That looks like a login page. I would suggest that you are not providing credentials correctly. I don't do that sort of thing much myself so I'm no expert but maybe you need to login first to generate a session cookie and then use that when downloading.

Question Downloading a CSV file

glucobear

New member

jmcilhinney

VB.NET Forum Moderator

glucobear

New member

jmcilhinney

VB.NET Forum Moderator

glucobear

New member

jmcilhinney

VB.NET Forum Moderator

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