HtmlElement In a_tags is not staying within if condition

I'm trying to scrape using the code below but it is not doing what I intend it to do. I want to scrape the inner text of the tag "a" when the attribute itemprop = "name". The result is correct but it scraped it twice.

The For Each a_tag As HtmlElement In a_tags is not staying within the itemprop="offers" condition.

******************
<tr itemtype="http://schema.org/Offer" itemscope="" itemprop="offers">
<a itemprop="name" title="2 Sets of Cross Country Asics Spikes with Handles!" class="vip" href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Sets-of-Cross-Country-Asics-Spikes-with-Handles-/140838036468?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&amp;hash=item20ca99e3f4">2 Sets of Cross Country Asics Spikes with Handles!</a>
</tr>
<tr itemtype="http://schema.org/Offer" itemscope="" itemprop="offers">
<a itemprop="name" title="2 Sets of Cross Country Asics Spikes with Handles!" class="vip" href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Sets-of-Cross-Country-Asics-Spikes-with-Handles-/140838036468?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&amp;hash=item20ca99e3f4">#2 - 2 Sets of Cross Country Asics Spikes with Handles!</a>
</tr>

*****************************
Dim trs As HtmlElementCollection = WebBrowser1.Document.GetElementsByTagName("tr")
For Each tr As HtmlElement In trs
If tr.GetAttribute("itemprop") = "offers" Then
Dim a_tags As HtmlElementCollection = WebBrowser1.Document.GetElementsByTagName("a")
For Each a_tag As HtmlElement In a_tags
If a_tag.GetAttribute("itemprop") = "name" Then
textbox1.text = textbox1.text & vbcrlf & a_tag.InnerText)
End If
Next
End If
Next

Well, yeah. It would. At every <tr> you load all the page tags into a second collection and then stop at the first <a> tag to come along. So if you've got 2 <tr> tags, you get 2 copies of the same <a> tag text. Why are you tracking <tr> at all if its the <a> tags you actually want?

Quote:

---

Dim a_tags As HtmlElementCollection = WebBrowser1.Document.GetElementsByTagName("a")
For Each a_tag As HtmlElement In a_tags
If a_tag.GetAttribute("itemprop") = "name" Then
textbox1.AppendText(a_tag.InnerText & vbCrLf)
End If
Next

---

The data I'm trying to scrape is in a table with multiple columns. Each row has a tag "tr." If I just scraped the "a" tag then I cannot keep the data together from each row.

Well that's not quite true. The HTML has to follow a logical sequence so the <a> tags will always appear in the same order. The items from each row will always be adjacent to each other in a list. If you want to separate them in sections you can divide a_tags.Count by trs.Count to get the number of items per row.

I understand what you are suggesting. Is that how most people scrape data from a table? It seems like if you're off by one count, your entire data is incorrect.

I was trying to grab the first "tr" tag that met my condition, then search all "a" tags within that tag that met my other conditions. I was hoping to scrape multiple columns of data on that row and then move to the next "tr" tag and continue in that fashion.

Well you might be able to do it that way if, say, you created a new HTML document from the inner html of each table row and then scanned that for the <a> tags. So you'd have something like (structure not code)

For Each <tr> in Original HTML
New HTML = inner <tr>
For each <a> in New HTML
Append Text inner <a>
Next
Append Text separator
Next

That's a great solution. I'm having trouble implementing the code. I'm not sure how to temporarily store the HtmlElement and set a new HtmlElementCollection.

****************
Dim current_tag_tr As String

Dim trs As HtmlElementCollection = WebBrowser1.Document.GetElementsByTagName("tr")
For Each tr As HtmlElement In trs
If tr.GetAttribute("itemprop") = "offers" Then

'syntax not correct
current_tag_tr = tr.OuterHtml
Dim a_tags As HtmlElementCollection = current_tag_tr.GetElementsByTagName("a")

For Each a_tag As HtmlElement In a_tags
If a_tag.GetAttribute("itemprop") = "name" Then
TextBox11.Text = TextBox11.Text & vbCrLf & a_tag.InnerText
End If
Next
End If
Next

I think the syntax is correct in this code but I'm still not getting the correct action. I have two test points in this code. The result of the 1 test is shown below. The 2nd point is blank.

#1
*******
<TR itemprop="offers" itemtype="http://schema.org/Offer" itemscope><TD class="pic lt"><!-- Moved to ResultSet.tag --><!-- Moved to ResultSet.tag --><A class=img href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mens-Asics-Gel-Noosa-TRI-6-Racings-Shoes-Neon-yellow-White-Turquoise-/280950896347?pt=US_Men_s_Shoes&amp;hash=item4169fa76db" itemprop="url"><IMG class=img alt="Men's Asics-Gel Noosa TRI 6 Racings Shoes Neon yellow/White/Turquoise" src="http://thumbs4.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/miz8OhHhVLOkFCVWXGaDycg.jpg" itemprop="image"> </A></TD>
<TD class=dtl>
<DIV class=ittl><A class=vip title="Men's Asics-Gel Noosa TRI 6 Racings Shoes Neon yellow/White/Turquoise" href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mens-Asics-Gel-Noosa-TRI-6-Racings-Shoes-Neon-yellow-White-Turquoise-/280950896347?pt=US_Men_s_Shoes&amp;hash=item4169fa76db" itemprop="name">Men's Asics-Gel Noosa TRI 6 Racings Shoes Neon yellow/White/T​urquoise</A> </DIV><!-- Moved to ResultSet.tag -->
<DIV class="dyn dynS">
<DIV class="s2 distLoc"></DIV>
<DIV class=s2>Returns: Not accepted</DIV>
<DIV style="CLEAR: left"></DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=anchors>
<DIV class=group>
<DIV class=mi-l><!-- Moved to ResultSet.tag -->
<DIV class=mi><A class="lnk iconQuickLook_14x14 mi-a" url="http://www.ebay.com/sch/moreinfo/?_id=280950896347&amp;_ptns=US_Men_s_Shoes&amp;_pppn=r1" t="QL">Quick Look</A> </DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></TD>
<TD class=trs></TD>
<TD class="bids bin1"><!-- Moved to ResultSet.tag -->
<DIV>9 bids</DIV><!-- Moved to ResultSet.tag --></TD>
<TD class=prc><!-- Moved to ResultSet.tag -->
<DIV class=g-b itemprop="price">$27.00</DIV><!-- Moved to ResultSet.tag --></TD>
<TD class="tme "><B class=hidlb>Time left:</B> <SPAN class=tme><B class=hidlb>Time left:</B> <SPAN>3d&nbsp;6h&nbsp;55m</SPAN> </SPAN></TD></TR>

*************************
code
-----
Dim trs As HtmlElementCollection = WebBrowser1.Document.GetElementsByTagName("tr")
For Each tr As HtmlElement In trs
If tr.GetAttribute("itemprop") = "offers" Then

Dim wb As New WebBrowser
'wb.DocumentText = "your html string"
wb.DocumentText = tr.OuterHtml

TextBox3.Text = TextBox3.Text & vbCrLf & "ZZ" & tr.OuterHtml

Dim doc As HtmlDocument = wb.Document
Dim a_tags As HtmlElementCollection = doc.GetElementsByTagName("a")

For Each a_tag As HtmlElement In a_tags
TextBox3.Text = TextBox3.Text & vbCrLf & "XX" & a_tag.OuterHtml

If a_tag.GetAttribute("itemprop") = "name" Then
TextBox4.Text = TextBox4.Text & vbCrLf & a_tag.GetAttribute("href").ToString
TextBox11.Text = TextBox11.Text & vbCrLf & a_tag.InnerText
End If
Next
End If
Next

I think the syntax is correct in this code but I'm still not getting the correct action. I have two test points in this code. The result of the 1 test is shown below. The 2nd point is blank.

#1
*******
<TR itemprop="offers" itemtype="http://schema.org/Offer" itemscope><TD class="pic lt"><!-- Moved to ResultSet.tag --><!-- Moved to ResultSet.tag --><A class=img href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mens-Asics-Gel-Noosa-TRI-6-Racings-Shoes-Neon-yellow-White-Turquoise-/280950896347?pt=US_Men_s_Shoes&amp;hash=item4169fa76db" itemprop="url"><IMG class=img alt="Men's Asics-Gel Noosa TRI 6 Racings Shoes Neon yellow/White/Turquoise" src="http://thumbs4.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/miz8OhHhVLOkFCVWXGaDycg.jpg" itemprop="image"> </A></TD>
<TD class=dtl>
<DIV class=ittl><A class=vip title="Men's Asics-Gel Noosa TRI 6 Racings Shoes Neon yellow/White/Turquoise" href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mens-Asics-Gel-Noosa-TRI-6-Racings-Shoes-Neon-yellow-White-Turquoise-/280950896347?pt=US_Men_s_Shoes&amp;hash=item4169fa76db" itemprop="name">Men's Asics-Gel Noosa TRI 6 Racings Shoes Neon yellow/White/T​urquoise</A> </DIV><!-- Moved to ResultSet.tag -->
<DIV class="dyn dynS">
<DIV class="s2 distLoc"></DIV>
<DIV class=s2>Returns: Not accepted</DIV>
<DIV style="CLEAR: left"></DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=anchors>
<DIV class=group>
<DIV class=mi-l><!-- Moved to ResultSet.tag -->
<DIV class=mi><A class="lnk iconQuickLook_14x14 mi-a" url="http://www.ebay.com/sch/moreinfo/?_id=280950896347&amp;_ptns=US_Men_s_Shoes&amp;_pppn=r1" t="QL">Quick Look</A> </DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></TD>
<TD class=trs></TD>
<TD class="bids bin1"><!-- Moved to ResultSet.tag -->
<DIV>9 bids</DIV><!-- Moved to ResultSet.tag --></TD>
<TD class=prc><!-- Moved to ResultSet.tag -->
<DIV class=g-b itemprop="price">$27.00</DIV><!-- Moved to ResultSet.tag --></TD>
<TD class="tme "><B class=hidlb>Time left:</B> <SPAN class=tme><B class=hidlb>Time left:</B> <SPAN>3d&nbsp;6h&nbsp;55m</SPAN> </SPAN></TD></TR>

*************************
code
-----
Dim trs As HtmlElementCollection = WebBrowser1.Document.GetElementsByTagName("tr")
For Each tr As HtmlElement In trs
If tr.GetAttribute("itemprop") = "offers" Then

Dim wb As New WebBrowser
'wb.DocumentText = "your html string"
wb.DocumentText = tr.OuterHtml

TextBox3.Text = TextBox3.Text & vbCrLf & "ZZ" & tr.OuterHtml

Dim doc As HtmlDocument = wb.Document
Dim a_tags As HtmlElementCollection = doc.GetElementsByTagName("a")

For Each a_tag As HtmlElement In a_tags
TextBox3.Text = TextBox3.Text & vbCrLf & "XX" & a_tag.OuterHtml

If a_tag.GetAttribute("itemprop") = "name" Then
TextBox4.Text = TextBox4.Text & vbCrLf & a_tag.GetAttribute("href").ToString
TextBox11.Text = TextBox11.Text & vbCrLf & a_tag.InnerText
End If
Next
End If
Next

vb.net Code:

Dim trs As HtmlElementCollection = WebBrowser1.Document.GetElementsByTagName("tr")
For Each tr As HtmlElement In trs
If tr.GetAttribute("itemprop") = "offers" Then
 
            Dim wb As WebBrowser = New WebBrowser 'allows the use of HTMLDocument
            wb.DocumentText = ""                             'initialises document
            wb.Document.Write(tr.OuterHtml)              'creates HTML document from the <tr>
 
 
            Dim a_tags As HtmlElementCollection = wb.Document.GetElementsByTagName("a")
 
For Each a_tag As HtmlElement In a_tags
If a_tag.GetAttribute("itemprop") = "name" Then
TextBox11.AppendText(a_tag.InnerText & vbCrLf) 'that's the way to do it!
End If
Next
End If
Next

That is it. Thanks. Appreciate all your help.