Html Parser & Object Model for .net/C#

Question

Hi, I'm looking to parse html using .net for the purposes of testing or asserting its content. i.e.

HtmlDocument doc = GetDocument("some html") List forms = doc.Forms() Link link = doc.GetLinkByText("New Customer")

the idea is to allow people to write tests in c# similar to how they do in webrat (ruby).

i.e.

visits('\') fills_in "Name", "mick" clicks "save"

I've seen the html agility pack, sgmlreader etc but has anyone created an object model for this, i.e. a set of classes representing the html elements, such as form, button etc??

Cheers.

Answer 1

The closest thing to an HTML DOM in .NET, as far as I can tell, is the HTML DOM.

You can use the Windows Forms WebBrowser control, load it with your HTML, then access the DOM from the outside.

BTW, this is .NET. Any code that works for VB.NET would work for C#.

Answer 2

you have 2 major options:

1. Use some browser engine (i.e. internet explorer) that will parse the html for u and then will give give u access to the generated DOM. this option will require u to hvae some interop with the browser engine (in the case of i.e. it's simple COM)

2. use some light weight parser like HtmlAgilityPack

Answer 3

Here is good library for html parsing, objects like HtmlButton , HtmlInput s are not created but it is a good point to start and to create them yourself if you don't want to use HTML DOM

Answer 4

It sounds to me like you are trying to do HTML unit tests. Have you looked into Selenium? It even has C# library so that you can write your HTML unit tests in C# and assert that elements exist and that they have the correct values and even click on links. It even works with JavaScript / AJAX sites.

Answer 5

The best parser for HTML is the HTQL COM. Use can use HTQL queries to retrieve HTML content.