I'm building a VBA app that creates and modifies Wordpress website pages using resources scraped from the web. The Wordpress API returns a JSON file but there is no native support for parsing JSON in VBA so I imported VBA-JSON from GitHub. Here is the subroutine:
Sub Wordpress()
'
' Wordpress API Test
'
Dim wpResp As Variant
Dim sourceSheet As String
Dim resourceURL As String
sourceSheet = "Resources"
resourceURL = Sheets(sourceSheet).Cells(6, 1)
wpResp = getJSON(resourceURL + "/wp-json/wp/v2/posts")
End Sub
And the function it calls.
Function getJSON(link) As Object
Dim response As String
Dim json As Object
On Error GoTo recovery
Dim retryCount As Integer
retryCount = 0
Dim web As MSXML2.XMLHTTP60
Set web = New MSXML2.XMLHTTP60
the_start:
web.Open "GET", link, False, UserName, pw
web.setRequestHeader "Content-type", "application/json"
web.send
response = web.responseText
While web.readyState <> 4
DoEvents
Wend
On Error GoTo 0
Debug.Print link
Debug.Print web.Status; "XMLHTTP status "; web.statusText; " at "; Time
Set json = JsonConverter.ParseJson(response)
'getJSON = json ' this line produces Object variable or With block variable not set error but I can deal with it later
Exit Function
recovery:
retryCount = retryCount + 1
Debug.Print "Error number: " & Err.Number & " " & Err.Description & " Retry " & retryCount
Application.StatusBar = "Error number: " & Err.Number & " " & Err.Description & " Retry " & retryCount
If retryCount < 4 Then GoTo the_start Else Exit Function
End Function
This code returns an Object/Collection with 1 item that contains a Variant/Object/Dictionary with 24 items but I'm lost on how to access these items. Here is a screenshot:
If I use the immediate window to query ?json.count I get the correct result "1" but after about six hours of researching on the web and trying as many variants as I could find, I'm still stuck on how to access the other 24.
Here is the JSON:
[{"id":1,"date":"2018-06-22T18:13:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-22T22:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mytestsite.org\/?p=1"},"modified":"2018-06-22T18:13:00","modified_gmt":"2018-06-22T22:13:00","slug":"hello-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mytestsite.org\/hello-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Post Title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What goes into a blog post? Helpful, industry-specific content that: 1) gives readers a useful takeaway, and 2) shows you’re an industry expert. <\/p>\n<p>Use your company’s blog posts to opine on current industry topics, humanize your company, and show how your products and services can help people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What goes into a blog post? Helpful, industry-specific content that: 1) gives readers a useful takeaway, and 2) shows you’re…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mytestsite.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mytestsite.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mytestsite.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mytestsite.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mytestsite.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"href":"http:\/\/mytestsite.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mytestsite.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mytestsite.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mytestsite.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mytestsite.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}]
At the end of the day, I want to be able to spin up a few hundred pages of WP content extracted and collated from several internet sources and keep them up to date using this app. Further suggestions beyond the problem here would also be useful so long as we don't get outside of VBA.
Try the code:
Set json = JsonConverter.ParseJson(s)
For Each k In json(1)
Debug.Print k & vbTab & json(1)(k)
Next
UPDATE
Take a look at the below example. Import JSON.bas module into the VBA project for JSON processing.
Option Explicit
Sub Test()
Dim sJSONString As String
Dim vJSON
Dim sState As String
Dim aData()
Dim aHeader()
Dim vResult
' Read JSON sample from file C:\Test\sample.json
sJSONString = ReadTextFile("C:\Test\sample.json", 0)
' Parse JSON sample
JSON.Parse sJSONString, vJSON, sState
If sState = "Error" Then
MsgBox "Invalid JSON"
End
End If
' Get the 1st element from root [] array
Set vJSON = vJSON(0)
' Convert raw JSON to 2d array and output to worksheet #1
JSON.ToArray vJSON, aData, aHeader
With Sheets(1)
.Cells.Delete
.Cells.WrapText = False
OutputArray .Cells(1, 1), aHeader
Output2DArray .Cells(2, 1), aData
.Columns.AutoFit
End With
' Flatten JSON
JSON.Flatten vJSON, vResult
' Convert flattened JSON to 2d array and output to worksheet #2
JSON.ToArray vResult, aData, aHeader
With Sheets(2)
.Cells.Delete
.Cells.WrapText = False
OutputArray .Cells(1, 1), aHeader
Output2DArray .Cells(2, 1), aData
.Columns.AutoFit
End With
MsgBox "Completed"
End Sub
Sub OutputArray(oDstRng As Range, aCells As Variant)
With oDstRng
.Parent.Select
With .Resize(1, UBound(aCells) - LBound(aCells) + 1)
.NumberFormat = "@"
.Value = aCells
End With
End With
End Sub
Sub Output2DArray(oDstRng As Range, aCells As Variant)
With oDstRng
.Parent.Select
With .Resize( _
UBound(aCells, 1) - LBound(aCells, 1) + 1, _
UBound(aCells, 2) - LBound(aCells, 2) + 1)
.NumberFormat = "@"
.Value = aCells
End With
End With
End Sub
Function ReadTextFile(sPath As String, lFormat As Long) As String
' lFormat -2 - System default, -1 - Unicode, 0 - ASCII
With CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject").OpenTextFile(sPath, 1, False, lFormat)
ReadTextFile = ""
If Not .AtEndOfStream Then ReadTextFile = .ReadAll
.Close
End With
End Function
BTW, the similar approach applied in the following answers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 ,17 and 18.
The JsonConverter is returning a collection of VBA.Collections Scripting.Dictionaries, and Values. In order to understand the output you will have to test the TypeName
of all the returned values.
The real question is "How to navigate through a json
object (or any unknown object for that matter) and access the values within.
Immediate Window
Using the Immediate Window
and the json
object from the OP's post I will try to describe the thought process (in the style of the must read book: The Little Schemer)
' What is json?
?TypeName(JSON)
Collection
'json is a collection
'How big is JSON
?JSON.Count
1
'JSON is a collection of 1 Item
'What is Type that Item?
?TypeName(JSON(1))
Dictionary
'JSON(1) is a Dictionary
'What is the first key in the JSON(1) Dictionary?
?JSON(1).Keys()(0)
id
'The first key in the JSON(1) Dictionary is "id"
'What is the Type of the value of "id"?
?TypeName(JSON(1)("id"))
Double
'JSON(1)("id") is a number
'What is its value
?JSON(1)("id")
1
Of course this process can get tedious consider the amount of nesting in this JSON Object.
JSON(1)("_links")("curies")(1)("templated")
Collection|Dictionary|Dictionary|Collection|Boolean Value
So I guess the best thing to do is write a function that will print all the accessor to the Immediate Window
and go from there.
PrintJSONAccessors:Sub
Sub PrintJSONAccessors(JSON As Variant, Optional Prefix As String)
Dim data As Variant, Key As Variant, Value As Variant
Dim Accessor As String, ArrayAccessor As String
Dim n As Long
If TypeName(JSON) = "Collection" Then
For n = 1 To JSON.Count
Accessor = Prefix & "(" & n & ")"
If TypeName(JSON(n)) = "Dictionary" Or TypeName(JSON(n)) = "Collection" Then
PrintJSONAccessors JSON(n), Accessor
Else
Debug.Print Accessor
End If
Next
Else
For Each Key In JSON
If TypeName(Key) = "Dictionary" Or TypeName(Key) = "Collection" Then
PrintJSONAccessors Key, Prefix
ElseIf TypeName(JSON(Key)) = "Dictionary" Or TypeName(JSON(Key)) = "Collection" Then
Accessor = Prefix & "(" & Chr(34) & Key & Chr(34) & ")"
PrintJSONAccessors JSON(Key), Accessor
ElseIf TypeName(JSON(Key)) = "Dictionary" Then
Accessor = Prefix & "(" & Chr(34) & Key & Chr(34) & ")"
PrintJSONAccessors JSON(Key), Accessor
ElseIf TypeName(JSON(Key)) = "Variant()" Then
data = JSON(Key)
For n = LBound(data) To UBound(data)
Accessor = Prefix & "(" & Chr(34) & Key & Chr(34) & ")"
ArrayAccessor = Prefix & "(" & Chr(34) & Key & Chr(34) & ")" & "(" & n & ")"
If TypeName(data(n)) = "Dictionary" Then
PrintJSONAccessors data(n), ArrayAccessor
Else
Debug.Print ArrayAccessor
End If
Next
Else
Accessor = Prefix & "(" & Chr(34) & Key & Chr(34) & ")"
Debug.Print Accessor
End If
Next
End If
End Sub
Usage:
PrintJSONAccessors JSON, "?JSON"
It appears that the MSScriptControl.ScriptControl
only works on 32 bit systems. I guess that is what SIM was alluding to in his comments. Although, my answer is IMO correct, you should ignore the next section of comments.
FYI: I posted a function that parses the JSON into Arrays and Dictionaries Function to Return a JSON Like Objects Using VBA Collections and Arrays on Code Review. It is not a replacement for JsonConverter or omegastripes's JSON.Bas. It demonstrates that you can add JScript code to CreateObject("MSScriptControl.ScriptControl")
and use it to process the JSON.