How to read XML data from a URL using vb.NET and save

Question

Friends, I can get the XML file by displaying bytes, perhaps that causes some problems. Can you suggest an alternative method to do the same to save the XML file?

  Try
        Dim strUrl As String = "http://example.com" 
        Dim wr As HttpWebRequest = CType(WebRequest.Create(strUrl), HttpWebRequest)
        Dim ws As HttpWebResponse = CType(wr.GetResponse(), HttpWebResponse)
        ws.ContentType = "UTF-16"
        Dim str As Stream = ws.GetResponseStream()
        Dim inBuf(100000) As Byte
        Dim bytesToRead As Integer = CInt(inBuf.Length)
        Dim bytesRead As Integer = 0
        While bytesToRead > 0
            Dim n As Integer = str.Read(inBuf, bytesRead, bytesToRead)
            If n = 0 Then
                Exit While
            End If
            bytesRead += n
            bytesToRead -= n
        End While
        Dim fstr As New FileStream("c:/GetXml.xml", FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.Write)
        fstr.Write(inBuf, 0, bytesRead)
        str.Close()
        fstr.Close()
    Catch ex As WebException
        Response.Write(ex.Message)
    End Try

Answer 1

Why not just use the class WebClientand its method DownloadFile? It seems a lot easier ....

This is in C #, but it’s easy for you to convert it to VB.NET:

WebClient wc = new WebClient();
wc.DownloadFile("http://xyz", @"C:\getxml.xml");

and you're done!

Mark

Answer 2

Consider using XMLTextReader. This example just loads all the XML into a string, but obviously you can write it to a file:

    Dim strUrl As String = "http://xyz.com"
    Dim reader As XmlTextReader = New XmlTextReader(strUrl)
    Dim output as String

    Do While (reader.Read())
        Select Case reader.NodeType
            Case XmlNodeType.Element 

                Output = Output + "<" + reader.Name

                If reader.HasAttributes Then 
                    While reader.MoveToNextAttribute()
                        Output = Output + " {0}='{1}'", reader.Name, reader.Value)
                    End While
                End If
                Output = Output + ">"
            Case XmlNodeType.Text
                Output = Output + reader.Value
            Case XmlNodeType.EndElement
                Output = Output + "</" + reader.Name + ">"
        End Select
    Loop

Answer 3

, URL? , HTTP-? ... ( ? .)