Using TIdHTTP in Delphi to submit form and retrive data (not the usual)

Question

There exists a web page (www.someurl.co.uk) that, amongst other stuff, has inside it a form containing an input field and an image. In a browser, when the user enters a string in the input field and clicks the image, the form is submitted and another page is generated (www.someurl.co.uk/results.php) containing, amongst other things, a table containing some results. I need Delphi to fill in the string in the form on the first page, submit the form and get back the contents of a couple of cells from the table on the results page. I have used the TIdHTTP component to post data to the form using the code below but the text I see in the memo box afterwards is simply the html of the initial page (www.someurl.co.uk). Please can somebody help me with the correct code to get the the values BlaBla_A, BlaBla_C, BlaBla_C and BlaBla_D from the results page - and to know which is which? (Although I'm happy with Delphi, I don't know much about web pages and HTML and this is my first time using the I…

Accepted Answer

You are posting your data to this URL, which is wrong:

```
IdHTTP1.Post('www.someurl.co.uk', Params, Response);
```

That is why you are getting the initial page back again - that is what you are actually asking for!

You need to post to this URL instead:

```
IdHTTP1.Post('http://www.someurl.co.uk/results.php', Params, Response);
```

And BTW, you do not need the `TStringStream` at all, `Post()` can return the string data for you:

```
procedure TForm1.Button2Click(Sender: TObject);
var
  Params: TStringList;
begin
  Params := TStringList.Create;
  try
    Params.Add('thedata=' + 'MyString');
    try
      memo1.Text := IdHTTP1.Post('www.someurl.co.uk', Params);
    except
      on E: Exception do
      begin
        ShowMessage('Error: ' + E.Message);
      end;
    end;
  finally
    Params.Free;
  end;
end;
```

Using TIdHTTP in Delphi to submit form and retrive data (not the usual)

Solution

Problem