Weird Hidden HTML

txrandom

Diamond Member
Aug 15, 2004
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When I few the web page in Firefox and open the source, the main block of text doesn't show up in the text most of the time. But whenever I inspect the element with FireBug it shows up. Some how the sight it hiding some of its HTML. Does anyone know how this is being done?

I'm trying to save the website with cUrl, and this is really throwing me off. At first I thought it was detecting that I was using cUrl and just not outputting the data. But the same thing is happening in the browser!
 

Markbnj

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It's probably in a frame. Try right-clicking the area of text you want, and clicking "View Page Source" on the context menu. That works in IE, should work in FF.
 

txrandom

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It's not a frame either. Sometimes it shows in the source sometimes it doesn't, but it's always visible in the page itself.
 

troytime

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Jan 3, 2006
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the source is always there. if its not showing, there's probably a software bug somewhere
 

txrandom

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Originally posted by: troytime
the source is always there. if its not showing, there's probably a software bug somewhere

It's doing the same thing in IE. The data I'm trying to get is suppose to be publicly available, but the school tries to make it a pain in the ass to access. I'm pretty sure they are doing something from their end.
 

txrandom

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I'm going to try accessing through another programming language and see if that has any affect. Luckily, I kept copies of the old records. I only need to obtain new records three times year and each time takes about 10 minutes, so it's not a huge deal. It's still bugging me!
 

Ken g6

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If it's publicly available, can you give us the URL to take a look?
 

txrandom

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http://admissions.tamu.edu/Reg...ff/Report/Default.aspx

Submit the first form. Use the year 2008 though as 2009 results won't be added until after the Spring semester.

I'm using Live HTTP Headers to mess around with post data to help me automatically pull it in. After I use Live HTTP Headers once, it won't show the complete source. Until then it seems to be working fine. It never works when I use cUrl to grab the source though.
 

Markbnj

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I just tried it, and when I submit the first form and "View Page Source" in Firefox, all the data is there.
 

chronodekar

Senior member
Nov 2, 2008
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Me too. I'm no expert, but it looks fine to me. (The data comes in an output very similar to a text file)
 

txrandom

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Aug 15, 2004
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It must be detecting that I'm refreshing the headers. But why would the data still appear in the webpage but not the source. Maybe I need to clear my cache...
 

txrandom

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Aug 15, 2004
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So it appears that whenever Live HTTP Headers is open, the source is hidden. I'm not sure if this a server or client side issue. Anyways, I wrote a small program using C# and PHP, and it works fine...
 

chronodekar

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Nov 2, 2008
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Well, good to hear that you solved the main issue. :)

Now all we need is someone to explain what's going on. To determine the cause of the whole thing...
 

txrandom

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Aug 15, 2004
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Originally posted by: chronodekar
Well, good to hear that you solved the main issue. :)

Now all we need is someone to explain what's going on. To determine the cause of the whole thing...

I'm happy to figure out how to fix something, but I hate when I don't know why it didn't work in the first place. Oh well :)