Arraylist object to string

Nested query doesn't work.

So I type

$al = getSites("http://seattle.craigslist.org/bik");

then

$al | %{getSites($_)}

which spews a bunch of errors. Any ideas? Thanks!

function getSites($url){
Write-Host $url
$arraylist = new-Object System.Collections.ArrayList
#$url = "http://seattle.craigslist.org/bik"
$xHTTP = new-object -com msxml2.xmlhttp;
$xHTTP.open("GET",$url,$false);
$xHTTP.send();
$webpage = $xHTTP.ResponseText; # returns the html doc
$re = [regex]'<\s*a\s+href\s*=\s*(?<path>"[^"]*")'
$re.Matches($webpage) | %{
Write-Host $_.groups['path'].value
[void]$arraylist.Add($_.groups['path'].value)
}
return $arraylist
}

Try this

$url="http://seattle.craigslist.org/bik/";
$webpage=(new-object net.webclient).DownloadString($url);
$re = [regex]'<\s*a\s+href\s*=\s*(?<path>"[^"]*")'
$re.Matches($wc) | % {$_.groups['path'].value}

"http://www.craigslist.org/about/help/"
"https://post.craigslist.org/sea/S"
"/"
"/bik/"
"/see/bik/"
"/est/bik/"
"/sno/bik/"
"/kit/bik/"
"/tac/bik/"
"/oly/bik/"
"/skc/bik/"
"http://forums.seattle.craigslist.org/?forumID=95"
(..)


personally, I find this less painfull

$url="http://seattle.craigslist.org/bik/";
$ie=new-object -com internetexplorer.application;
$ie.visible=$true
$ie.navigate2($url);
while ($ie.busy) {sleep -milliseconds 50}
$links=@($ie.document.getElementsByTagName("A"));
$links | select href,innerText
$ie.Quit();

href innerText
---- ---------
http://www.craigslist.org/about/help/ help
https://post.craigslist.org/sea/S post
http://seattle.craigslist.org/ seattle-tacoma craigslist
http://seattle.craigslist.org/bik/ bicycles
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/bik/ seattle
http://seattle.craigslist.org/est/bik/ eastside
http://seattle.craigslist.org/sno/bik/ snohomish co
http://seattle.craigslist.org/kit/bik/ kitsap co
http://seattle.craigslist.org/tac/bik/ tacoma
(...)


Shay
http://scriptolog.blogspot.com

Had a typo in the first example, this one works

$url="http://seattle.craigslist.org/bik/";
$webpage=(new-object net.webclient).DownloadString($url);
$re = [regex]'<\s*a\s+href\s*=\s*(?<path>"[^"]*")'
$re.Matches($webpage) | % {$_.groups['path'].value}


Shay
http://scriptolog.blogspot.com