is there a way to get info from a youtube video link such as
i want to get the title, description, video duration, thumbnail link, and videoid ie.: v=gJ_3BN0m7S8
just the bold part from a link
and yeah without the use of an webbrowser since they seem to be really slow
and no code is done for now ill manage to implement into a project im workin on later this is the only part i need, thanks!
You could use WebClient or HttpWebRequest to get the URL source. Then look for the desired info.
Add the following Imports statements:
Version 1 (using WebClient):
getUrlSource:
Public Function getUrlSource() As String
Dim urlSource As String = String.Empty
Dim client As New System.Net.WebClient
Try
'create request to web server (url)
urlSource = client.DownloadString(_url)
Finally
If Not client Is Nothing Then
client.Dispose()
End If
End Try
Return urlSource
End Function
Version 2 (using HttpWebRequest):
getUrlSource:
Public Function getUrlSource() As String
Dim errMsg As String = String.Empty
Dim urlSource As String = String.Empty
Dim request As System.Net.HttpWebRequest = Nothing
Dim response As System.Net.HttpWebResponse = Nothing
Dim sr As System.IO.StreamReader = Nothing
Try
'create request to web server (url)
request = HttpWebRequest.Create(_url)
'set value for AutoRedirect
request.AllowAutoRedirect = True
'receives response from request sent to
'web server
response = request.GetResponse()
If Not response.StatusCode = HttpStatusCode.OK Then
errMsg = "Response status code: " & response.StatusCode
MessageBox.Show(errMsg, "Error - Response", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error)
Return errMsg
End If
'get encoding
Dim encoding = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding(response.CharacterSet)
'use StreamReader to read urlSource
sr = New StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream(), encoding)
urlSource = sr.ReadToEnd()
Finally
'close StreamReader
If Not sr Is Nothing Then
sr.Close()
End If
End Try
Return urlSource
End Function
Then get the information from the html source code:
First I create a class to hold the desired data. I will call it "YTInfo.vb"
YTInfo.vb
Public Class YTnfo
Public Property Author As String
Public Property ChannelId As String
Public Property Description As String
Public Property Duration As String
Public Property ThumbnailUrl As String
Public Property Title As String
Public Property Url As String
Public Property VideoId As String
End Class
You can use a different method to get your desired data from the html source, but I use a WebBrowser and HtmlDocument.
extractDataFromHtml:
Private Function extractDataFromHtml(ByVal urlSource As String) As YTnfo
Dim elemContent As String = String.Empty
Dim elemHref As String = String.Empty
Dim elemName As String = String.Empty
Dim elemItemProp As String = String.Empty
Dim elemProperty As String = String.Empty
Dim htmlDoc As System.Windows.Forms.HtmlDocument
Dim metaElements As System.Windows.Forms.HtmlElementCollection
Dim linkElements As System.Windows.Forms.HtmlElementCollection
Dim spanElements As System.Windows.Forms.HtmlElementCollection
Dim webBrowser1 As New System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowser
Dim info As New YTnfo
If Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(urlSource) Then
Console.WriteLine("getting tags...")
'suppress scripting errors
webBrowser1.ScriptErrorsSuppressed = True
'open a blank web page
webBrowser1.Navigate("about:blank")
'set htmlDoc = to a new WebBrowser document
htmlDoc = webBrowser1.Document.OpenNew(True)
'write html to the blank
'HTML document
htmlDoc.Write(urlSource)
'get "meta" elements
metaElements = htmlDoc.GetElementsByTagName("meta")
For Each element As System.Windows.Forms.HtmlElement In metaElements
elemContent = element.GetAttribute("content")
elemHref = element.GetAttribute("href")
elemName = element.GetAttribute("name")
elemItemProp = element.GetAttribute("itemprop")
elemProperty = element.GetAttribute("property")
If elemName = "title" Then
info.Title = elemContent
End If
If elemItemProp = "channelId" Then
info.ChannelId = elemContent
ElseIf elemItemProp = "description" Then
info.Description = elemContent
ElseIf elemItemProp = "duration" Then
info.Duration = elemContent
ElseIf elemItemProp = "videoId" Then
info.VideoId = elemContent
End If
If elemProperty = "og:title" Then
info.Title = elemContent
ElseIf elemProperty = "og:url" Then
info.Url = elemContent
End If
Next
'get "link" elements
linkElements = htmlDoc.GetElementsByTagName("link")
For Each element As System.Windows.Forms.HtmlElement In linkElements
elemContent = String.Empty
elemHref = String.Empty
elemName = String.Empty
elemItemProp = String.Empty
elemProperty = String.Empty
elemHref = element.GetAttribute("href")
elemItemProp = element.GetAttribute("itemprop")
If elemItemProp = "thumbnailUrl" Then
info.ThumbnailUrl = elemHref
ElseIf elemItemProp = "url" Then
Console.WriteLine("URL: " & elemHref)
End If
Next
'get "span" elements - to get Author
spanElements = htmlDoc.GetElementsByTagName("span")
For Each element As System.Windows.Forms.HtmlElement In spanElements
elemHref = element.GetAttribute("href")
elemItemProp = element.GetAttribute("itemprop")
If elemItemProp = "author" Then
'get "link" elements inside of the "span" element
linkElements = element.GetElementsByTagName("link")
For Each spanLinkElement As System.Windows.Forms.HtmlElement In linkElements
If spanLinkElement.GetAttribute("itemprop") = "url" Then
If spanLinkElement.GetAttribute("href").StartsWith("http://www.youtube.com/user") Then
info.Author = spanLinkElement.GetAttribute("href")
End If
End If
Next
End If
Next
End If
Return info
End Function
Another option would be to use regex. You can see how to use regex in my post here.
Look at "extractData".
A regex pattern for "Title" would look like:
Dim patternTitle As String = "<meta name=""title"" content=""(?<title>.*)"">"
Or
Dim patternTitle As String = "<meta property=""og:title"" content=""(?<title>.*)"">"
However, I've read that one should not use regex to parse html.
Here is some of the info you might look for:
Author:
<span itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
<link itemprop="url" href="http://www.youtube.com/user/amedve1">
</span>
ChannelId:
<meta itemprop="channelId" content="UC8Tvbkn57bAs_yOjaI1XiCg">
Description:
<meta name="description" content="Bear to the rescue. Filmed at Budapest ZOO (Hungary), 19. 6. 2014 Camera: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ72">
Duration:
<meta itemprop="duration" content="PT2M13S">
Title:
<meta property="og:title" content="Crow rescue">
<meta name="title" content="Crow rescue">
Thumbnail URL:
<meta property="og:image" content="http://i.ytimg.com/vi/gJ_3BN0m7S8/maxresdefault.jpg">
<link itemprop="thumbnailUrl" href="http://i.ytimg.com/vi/gJ_3BN0m7S8/maxresdefault.jpg">
Url:
<meta property="og:url" content="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ_3BN0m7S8">
<meta name="twitter:url" content="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ_3BN0m7S8">
VideoId:
<meta itemprop="videoId" content="gJ_3BN0m7S8">
Resources:
WebClient.DownloadString Method (String)
For duration, you see the following:
<meta itemprop="duration" content="PT2M13S">
It appears that “PT” marks the start of the time part of the value. "M" is for minute(s). "S" is for seconds.
So in the above: 2 minutes and 13 seconds
thank you very much cgeier i will try this tomorrow after work and come back with feedback, much appreciated for this well detailed!
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