c# to log into a website and retreive data

[tgabe213]

With some inspiration from the Muses thread (thanks maw!) I've decided to continue dabbling and decided I want to create a little app as a reminder for paying bills and such.

To start, what I'd like to do is 'log in' to my Citi credit card account (www.citicards.com) and retrieve a few pieces of information such my current balance, minimum payment due, and due date.

When viewing the source of www.citicards.com, I found:

<label for="userId">User ID</label>
..data html cut out
<label for="password">Password</label>

then, the first page it defaults to from there is my account overview, containing my wanted information. In the source of that page is:

<div class="curr_balance">$999.99</div>
<div class="min_due">$0.00</div>
<h3>Payment Due: <span>Aug. 10, 2009</span></h3>

The payment due date isn't in a unique set of tags. It's just in a H3 and span tag. The Next Statement Date is in the same kind of tag. I think I'd be able to parse thru the page to get that info since it will be in the same location all the time.

I don't know what direction to take because I don't understand how this would work. Because, really, the application would log in to the site (without launching a browser), and get the data.

 

[tgabe213]

I know it's do able but I don't understand how you could because I think its setting a cookie. Quicken and other money programs are able to do it. A few apps for the iphone do it too.

 

[amromousa]

I know it's do able but I don't understand how you could because I think its setting a cookie. Quicken and other money programs are able to do it. A few apps for the iphone do it too.

Those use programs use web services/APIs to fetch information instead of relying on screen scraping. They probably integrate with a single data provider (such as Yodlee), instead of directly with Citi, since they support hundreds of institutions.