Function Similar to importxml in Excel?

Question

I love using Google Docs function =importxml() but would love to know if there was anything like it in Excel 2010? I cant seem to find a way for the program to automatically pull data from a linked XML file.

For example, I would love to be able to set up a column with the header "Item Name", then have the next column append the user-entered item name in the previous column to this url

http://util.eveuniversity.org/xml/itemLookup.php?name=

and then parse the resulting XML file to return the type ID. This is accomplished in google docs using

=importxml(concatenate("http://util.eveuniversity.org/xml/itemLookup.php?name=",A3);"//itemLookup/typeID")

A3 is the column that has the item name, which in this case would be Tritanium, and imports the data form the resulting XML file

http://util.eveuniversity.org/xml/itemLookup.php?name=Tritanium

which returns the value 34.

I have a list of about 20 item names that google docs automatically updates the item ID on every time I open the file. Is there any way for Excel 2010 to replicate this function?

Thanks!

Will

Answer 1

Question is from 2013, some time has passed...

With Excel 2013, there is a function WEBSERVICE to load XML documents, that would do exactly what you want.

There is also FILTERXML to search loaded XML document using XPath.

Answer 2

You will need to write your own UDF.

One way would be to use the MSXML2 library, something like this:

Function GetData(sName As String, sItem As String, Optional sURL = "") As Variant
    Dim oHttp As New MSXML2.XMLHTTP60
    Dim xmlResp As MSXML2.DOMDocument60
    Dim result As Variant
    On Error GoTo EH

    If sURL = "" Then
        sURL = "http://util.eveuniversity.org/xml/itemLookup.php?name="
    End If

    'open the request and send it'
    oHttp.Open "GET", sURL & sName, False
    oHttp.Send

    'get the response as xml'
    Set xmlResp = oHttp.responseXML
    ' get Item'
    GetData = xmlResp.getElementsByTagName(sItem).Item(0).Text

    ' Examine output of these in the Immediate window'
    Debug.Print sName
    Debug.Print xmlResp.XML

CleanUp:
    On Error Resume Next
    Set xmlResp = Nothing
    Set oHttp = Nothing
Exit Function
EH:
    GetData = CVErr(xlErrValue)
    GoTo CleanUp
End Function

Call it like this (where A5 contains the required typeName)

=GetData(A5, "typeID")