I want to display a 'news' page in a form using Deplhi TWebBrowser. The news page is a simple HTML page which we upload to our website from time to time and may be output from various tools. The display is fine but I'd like to know in my app whether it has changed since I last displayed it, so ideally I'd like to get either its modified date/time or its size / checksum. Precision is not important and ideally should not rely on properties that might fail because 'simple' tools were used to edit the HTML file such as NotePad. Checking on the web there are several document modified java calls but I really dont know where to start with those. I've looked through the numerous calls in Delphi's Winapi.WinInet unit and I see I can fetch the file with HTTP to examine it but that seems like cracking a walnut with a sledgehammer. I also cannot see any file date time functionality which makes me think I'm missing something obvious. I'm using Delphi XE5. In which direction should I be looking please? Thanks for any pointers.
Thanks to a mixture of suggestions and pointers from kobik, David and TLama, I realised that I actually did need a sledgehammer and I finally came up with this solution (and I'm probably not the first, or the last!). I had to read the file contents because this did seem a better way of detecting changes. The code below calls "CheckForWebNewsOnTimer" from a TTimer infrequently and uses Indy to read the news page, make an MD5 hash of its contents and compare that with a previous hash stored in the registry. If the contents change, or 120 days elapses, the page pops up. The code has wrinkles, for example a change to a linked image on the page might not trigger a change but hey, its only news, and text almost always changes too.
function StreamToMD5HashHex( AStream : TStream ) : string;
// Creates an MD5 hash hex of this stream
var
idmd5 : TIdHashMessageDigest5;
begin
idmd5 := TIdHashMessageDigest5.Create;
try
result := idmd5.HashStreamAsHex( AStream );
finally
idmd5.Free;
end;
end;
function HTTPToMD5HashHex( const AURL : string ) : string;
var
HTTP : TidHTTP;
ST : TMemoryStream;
begin
HTTP := TidHTTP.Create( nil );
try
ST := TMemoryStream.Create;
try
HTTP.Get( AURL, ST );
Result := StreamToMD5HashHex( ST );
finally
ST.Free;
end;
finally
HTTP.Free;
end;
end;
function ShouldShowNews( const ANewHash : string; AShowAfterDays : integer ) : boolean;
const
Section = 'NewsPrompt';
IDHash = 'LastHash';
IDLastDayNum = 'LastDayNum';
var
sLastHash : string;
iLastPromptDay : integer;
begin
// Check hash
sLastHash := ReadRegKeyUserStr( Section, IDHash, '' );
Result := not SameText( sLastHash, ANewHash );
if not Result then
begin
// Check elapsed days
iLastPromptDay := ReadRegKeyUserInt( Section, IDLastDayNum, 0 );
Result := Round( Now ) - iLastPromptDay > AShowAfterDays;
end;
if Result then
begin
// Save params for checking next time.
WriteRegKeyUserStr( Section, IDHash, ANewHash );
WriteRegKeyUserInt( Section, IDLastDayNum, Round(Now) );
end;
end;
procedure CheckForWebNewsOnTimer;
var
sHashHex, S : string;
begin
try
S := GetNewsURL; // < my news address
sHashHex := HTTPToMD5HashHex( S );
If ShouldShowNews( sHashHex, 120 {days default} ) then
begin
WebBrowserDlg( S );
end;
except
// .. ignore or save as info
end;
end;