[vba] Use getElementById on HTMLElement instead of HTMLDocument

I don't like it either.

So use javascript:

Public Function GetJavaScriptResult(doc as HTMLDocument, jsString As String) As String

    Dim el As IHTMLElement
    Dim nd As HTMLDOMTextNode

    Set el = doc.createElement("INPUT")
    Do
        el.ID = GenerateRandomAlphaString(100)
    Loop Until Document.getElementById(el.ID) Is Nothing
    el.Style.display = "none"
    Set nd = Document.appendChild(el)

    doc.parentWindow.ExecScript "document.getElementById('" & el.ID & "').value = " & jsString

    GetJavaScriptResult = Document.getElementById(el.ID).Value

    Document.removeChild nd

End Function


Function GenerateRandomAlphaString(Length As Long) As String

    Dim i As Long
    Dim Result As String

    Randomize Timer

    For i = 1 To Length
        Result = Result & Chr(Int(Rnd(Timer) * 26 + 65 + Round(Rnd(Timer)) * 32))
    Next i

    GenerateRandomAlphaString = Result

End Function

Let me know if you have any problems with this; I've changed the context from a method to a function.

By the way, what version of IE are you using? I suspect you're on < IE8. If you upgrade to IE8 I presume it'll update shdocvw.dll to ieframe.dll and you will be able to use document.querySelector/All.

Edit

Comment response which isn't really a comment: Basically the way to do this in VBA is to traverse the child nodes. The problem is you don't get the correct return types. You could fix this by making your own classes that (separately) implement IHTMLElement and IHTMLElementCollection; but that's WAY too much of a pain for me to do it without getting paid :). If you're determined, go and read up on the Implements keyword for VB6/VBA.

Public Function getSubElementsByTagName(el As IHTMLElement, tagname As String) As Collection

    Dim descendants As New Collection
    Dim results As New Collection
    Dim i As Long

    getDescendants el, descendants

    For i = 1 To descendants.Count
        If descendants(i).tagname = tagname Then
            results.Add descendants(i)
        End If
    Next i

    getSubElementsByTagName = results

End Function

Public Function getDescendants(nd As IHTMLElement, ByRef descendants As Collection)
    Dim i As Long
    descendants.Add nd
    For i = 1 To nd.Children.Length
        getDescendants nd.Children.Item(i), descendants
    Next i
End Function