How do I convert the body of an email (HTML table) into XML?

Question

Hi there I have an email which has the body as an HTML table and I need to read every row and output the values as an XML. Any suggestions on how to achieve this ? Regards

Sam Hobbs · Answer

The best way is to use the Outlook classes or API. You should be able to access the attachment as HTML but the details are specific to Outlook. If you want to do that then you need to ask about Outlook. There is not a general-purpose solution for all email clients. Note that you did not specify in your original message that you need to do this for an Outlook message. I am assuming that you have read my article especially the part about HtmlDocument and HTMLDocument. First add a reference to Microsoft HTML Object Library; it is a COM Object not in the .Net library. Then the following console program shows how to get HTML into an HTML document. using System; namespace _97922 { class Program { const String htmltext =  Header Document text. ; static void Main(string[] args) { mshtml.IHTMLDocument2 Document = new mshtml.HTMLDocumentClass(); Document.write(new object[] { htmltext }); Document.close(); mshtml.IHTMLElementCollection Elements = Document.body.children as mshtml.IHTMLElementCollection; if (Elements == null) { Console.WriteLine(No elements); return; } mshtml.IHTMLElement e = null; for (int i = 0; i { e = Elements.item(i) as mshtml.IHTMLElement; if (e == null) Console.WriteLine(Unknown object at {0} i); else Console.WriteLine(e.tagName); } } } }

Suthish Nair · Answer

you can read the file like this... using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(Server.MapPath(email.html))) { String line = String.Empty; while ((line=reader.ReadLine()) != null) { Response.Write(line); } } refer for xml conversion... http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-tiptidy.html http://www.example-code.com/csharp/html2xml.asp

Sam Hobbs · Answer

My Introduction to Web Site Scraping will probably help. I am not sure how you would get the data initially; you could copy and paaste the HTML into a HTML file then use the code in my article. Another possibility would be to copy the table to the clipboard and then paste the table into Excel or Access or a similar application. That might not work but it will be relatively easy to try.

Schuster Efigenio · Answer

Hi Sam I have found an HTML agility pack and the does pretty much everything you would want to with HTML. just if you need this for future reference. regards

Schuster Efigenio · Answer

Hi Sam Yes it is frustrating I want to basically get all the table row values in Document.body.innerHTML and store them in a string array. I have spend some time trying several ways but to no end. thanks for your help. I will try suthish's suggestion and links and see if i can solve my issue.

Suthish Nair · Answer

Please accept the post as answer if your query is resolved. Thank You.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

I am not sure I understand what you mean by reading all the data but I assume you mean you are having difficulty finding the data and getting around in it. I understand that; HTML can be frustrating. I don't have suggestions for making things easier. There are probably tools but I don't know about any. I might write a tool to help but I have nothing now. I don't know of any easy answers. If it were me I would have to spend a lot of time figuring out the HTML and how to get around in it and such.

Schuster Efigenio · Answer

Thanks Sam. Got a bit further. I have now got the email in HTML but having troubles reading all the data. I have attached the HTML page.

Schuster Efigenio · Answer

Sorry Sam your article is useful. Let me explain further when I read email body I need to cast it in HTM L or a way of obtaining the HTML that I see when viewing the source in outlook. At present I am only able to store that contents in a string variable but I require the contents in its HTML form. Hope that helps.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

Are you sure that my article is not relevant? Please look at the article without assuming it does not help. If I misunderstand what you mean by  reading the body of the email in its HTML form  then you need to be more clear; there are multiple possible interpretations.

Schuster Efigenio · Answer

Thanks for your suggestion my issue is that I can get the data but not in its original format i.e. I can't see the HTML formatting. I need a why of reading the body of the email in its HTML form.