Cannot Dechiper Encoded String

[Dudely]

I pull a text string off a web page, that contains some random text.
From time to time, the string will contain a mixture of ASCII and ISO
encoded characters. Sample below.

I'm unable to get any function to recognize the string.

I'm using VBA 6.0 with Excel 2000

Example code:

Subject= "Auction"

Subject = Replace(Subject, "B", "A")

I've also tried every other character that should be in that string.

The replacement never takes place, the string is unmodified. I've
also tried searching for just "&#" but it never finds that either.
I've tried using InStr as well but that fails to find a match too.
The goal is of course to dechiper the (random) string into it's ASCII
equivalent (so that it can be read by a human).

Any help?

Thank you in advance

- Dudely

 

[Peter T]

Looks like you have a typo, 66 vs 65

Try this too -

Sub test()
Dim i As Long, j As Long, k As Long
Dim Subject As String

Subject = "Auction"

For j = 0 To 1
k = 32 * j
For i = 65 To 65 + 26
sfind = Replace("", "num", CStr(i + k))
Subject = Replace(Subject, sfind, Chr$(i + k))
Next
Next
MsgBox Subject ' Auction
End Sub

Regards,
Peter T

 

[Dudely]

Yes, the typo was in the post, not in the original code.

I didn't quite understand what you were doing, so I changed your code
a bit to:

For i = 48 To 127
sfind = Replace("", "num", CStr(i))
Subject = Replace(Subject, sfind, Chr$(i))
Next
which I believe captures the essence of what you were doing. The
target string could be almost anything and must be able to handle any
character. For the moment, I'm assuming the ASCII character set to be
sufficient, but in truth there's nothing to prevent someone from using
alphanum characters outside that range as well.

In any event, while the sample string works, live data continues to
fail.

What I'd prefer to do, is setup a "capture", because it walks through
a LOT of data before it gets to one of these encoded text strings and
I'd rather not have to check every single iteration to see if it has
one of the target strings.

What I mean is that instead of trying to fix it first, I'd prefer to
find and capture the text. Then later a similar method can be used to
replace the target string.

So instead of the above, it might say something like:

if inStr(1, Subject, "&#") then
msgBox "Found " + Subject
endif

Something like that. Note, that I tried something like that and it
also failed.

Thank you most kindly for your help.

- Dudely

 

[Peter T]

The double loop I posted processed char codes 65-90 and 97-122, ie A-Z,a-z.

Even with the limited information and typo you posted it appeared to
successfully decode your sample string.

If it fails to decode different sample data, it's impossible for anyone to
assist without that data, and ideally what the sample should decode as
(doesn't look like it's encrypted).

Regards,
Peter T



Yes, the typo was in the post, not in the original code.

I didn't quite understand what you were doing, so I changed your code
a bit to:

For i = 48 To 127
sfind = Replace("", "num", CStr(i))
Subject = Replace(Subject, sfind, Chr$(i))
Next
which I believe captures the essence of what you were doing. The
target string could be almost anything and must be able to handle any
character. For the moment, I'm assuming the ASCII character set to be
sufficient, but in truth there's nothing to prevent someone from using
alphanum characters outside that range as well.

In any event, while the sample string works, live data continues to
fail.

What I'd prefer to do, is setup a "capture", because it walks through
a LOT of data before it gets to one of these encoded text strings and
I'd rather not have to check every single iteration to see if it has
one of the target strings.

What I mean is that instead of trying to fix it first, I'd prefer to
find and capture the text. Then later a similar method can be used to
replace the target string.

So instead of the above, it might say something like:

if inStr(1, Subject, "&#") then
msgBox "Found " + Subject
endif

Something like that. Note, that I tried something like that and it
also failed.

Thank you most kindly for your help.

- Dudely

 

[Dudely]

Thanks for your response. Here is a cut & paste of another sample
string retrieved.

Bank Seized

I've changed your code to do the following:

For i = 0 To 255
sfind = Replace("", "num", CStr(i))
Subject = Replace(Subject, sfind, Chr$(i))
Next

When the string is copied to a static variable; i.e.
str="Bank Seized" for the purposes of testing, then
there is no problem.
However, when I pull it directly off the web page by accessing the
DOM, and then parse it like so: Subject = Mid(el, theSpot + 8), the
above code fails to make the replacement. Note that "el" is of type
variant. Perhaps this has something to do with it? Subject is of
type String.

Thank you again for your help.

 

[Peter T]

What is the Subject string after doing this

Subject = Mid(el, theSpot + 8)

What is the string value of 'el' and the numeric value of 'theSpot'

Regards,
Peter T


Thanks for your response. Here is a cut & paste of another sample
string retrieved.

Bank Seized

I've changed your code to do the following:

For i = 0 To 255
sfind = Replace("", "num", CStr(i))
Subject = Replace(Subject, sfind, Chr$(i))
Next

When the string is copied to a static variable; i.e.
str="Bank Seized" for the purposes of testing, then
there is no problem.
However, when I pull it directly off the web page by accessing the
DOM, and then parse it like so: Subject = Mid(el, theSpot + 8), the
above code fails to make the replacement. Note that "el" is of type
variant. Perhaps this has something to do with it? Subject is of
type String.

Thank you again for your help.

 

[Dudely]

The string value of el is composed of letters & numbers that make up
an email address, +1. It comes in the form of: *@*.* and is composed
of a random number of characters followed by ?subject= followed by the
actual subject string. The value of theSpot is equal to the number of
characters in the email address. If in fact the email address were
(e-mail address removed), then the corresponding values would be:

el.value=mailto[email protected]?subject=Bank
Seized
theSpot=the number of characters between the start of the value and
the word "subject" and is obtained by the expression: theSpot = InStr
(el, "subject")
The subject string=Bank Seized

 

[Ron Rosenfeld]

The string value of el is composed of letters & numbers that make up
an email address, +1. It comes in the form of: *@*.* and is composed
of a random number of characters followed by ?subject= followed by the
actual subject string. The value of theSpot is equal to the number of
characters in the email address. If in fact the email address were
(e-mail address removed), then the corresponding values would be:

el.value=mailto[email protected]?subject=Bank
Seized
theSpot=the number of characters between the start of the value and
the word "subject" and is obtained by the expression: theSpot = InStr
(el, "subject")
The subject string=Bank Seized

I suspect something odd about the code you have not posted. Perhaps if you
posted all of your code, and not just bits and pieces, it might be helpful.

The following seems to work as expected:

=====================
Option Explicit
Const e1 As String = _
"mailto[email protected]?subject=Bank Seized"

Sub foo()
Dim SubjectString As String
Dim i As Long
Dim theSpot As Long
theSpot = InStr(e1, "subject")
SubjectString = Mid(e1, theSpot + 8)

For i = 32 To 127
SubjectString = Replace(SubjectString, "&#" & i & ";", Chr(i))
Next i

Debug.Print SubjectString

End Sub
====================
--ron

 

[Ron Rosenfeld]

The string value of el is composed of letters & numbers that make up
an email address, +1. It comes in the form of: *@*.* and is composed
of a random number of characters followed by ?subject= followed by the
actual subject string. The value of theSpot is equal to the number of
characters in the email address. If in fact the email address were
(e-mail address removed), then the corresponding values would be:

el.value=mailto[email protected]?subject=Bank
Seized
theSpot=the number of characters between the start of the value and
the word "subject" and is obtained by the expression: theSpot = InStr
(el, "subject")
The subject string=Bank Seized

As I mentioned -- something in your code.

The above code, which you did post, is ambiguous.

You mention in a previous post that e1 is of type variant. That being the
case, e1.value is not valid and should be giving you an error.
--ron

 

[Peter T]

Ron has more than covered anything I can add in response, in particular el
vs el.value

FWIW you should be able to pass the original string to the de-crypt routine
and return a sensible result (ie before parsing with InStr)

Regards,
Peter T

The string value of el is composed of letters & numbers that make up
an email address, +1. It comes in the form of: *@*.* and is composed
of a random number of characters followed by ?subject= followed by the
actual subject string. The value of theSpot is equal to the number of
characters in the email address. If in fact the email address were
(e-mail address removed), then the corresponding values would be:

el.value=mailto[email protected]?subject=Bank
Seized
theSpot=the number of characters between the start of the value and
the word "subject" and is obtained by the expression: theSpot = InStr
(el, "subject")
The subject string=Bank Seized

 

[Dudely]

Sorry, I didn't express myself clearly enough.

The value of el, as seen in the watch window in the value column, is
what I meant when I typed el.value. I'm actually accessing "el", not
"el.value'. I apologize for the confusion.

Also, I recently realized that the debug window is showing
"mailto:[email protected]?subject=Got%20ize%20" for el, whereas
when I look at the web page source, that same line of data that I'm
capturing as "el", shows up as:Gov't Seized

So that explains why it's not working for me. By the time the
datastring is captured by a variable something has already discarded
the characters that need translating.

I'm getting el this way:

Set IeDoc = obIe.document
el = IeDoc.getElementsByTagName("HR")
el = el.nextSibling.nextSibling

Here's where I started to copy the data from the web page source, and
that's when I realized - the data I'm trying to translate doesn't
exist in the line of data I'm capturing! It had already been
removed! No wonder it didn't work!

So, from there it was easy to figure out. I needed to grab that data
from a different element. And I did. And now it works.

Many thanks to both of you for your help, you led me to the actual
problem. Couldn't of done it without either of you.