How to Do This Screen Scraping

[Tarun]

I Have tried to fetch some XML data through screen scraping by the
following code:

System.Net.Serv icePointManager .CertificatePol icy = New
MyCertificatePo licy
dim path as String=""
Try
Dim req As HttpWebRequest = CType(WebReques t.Create(path),
HttpWebRequest)
Dim res As HttpWebResponse = CType(req.GetRe sponse, HttpWebResponse )
Dim strm As Stream = res.GetResponse Stream
dim ds as New DataSet
ds.ReadXml(strm )
Catch ex As Exception

End Try

An exception is occuring in ds.ReadXml(strm ) The Exception says Root
Element missing.
Exception::
System.Xml.XmlE xception: The root element is missing.
at System.Xml.XmlT extReader.Read( )
at System.Xml.XmlR eader.MoveToCon tent()
at System.Data.Dat aSet.ReadXml(Xm lReader reader, Boolean
denyResolving)
at System.Data.Dat aSet.ReadXml(St ream stream)
at Flower.Module1. readMyXml(Strin g path)

(Note:The above code is written in readMyXML function in Module1)

But it is not returning the required XML data. Though the same code is
fetching required XML from a Desktop Based application.

The path from which i am fetching XML is Under SSL that is my URL
starts with "https://".
I also have tried with the below code. Here the data to post is been
seperated from the URL.
But here nothing is returned but a timeout is occuring at most probably
in calling "reqStream.Writ e()" method.

System.Net.Serv icePointManager .CertificatePol icy = New
MyCertificatePo licy
Dim b() As Byte
Dim postData As String = path.Substring( path.IndexOf("? ") + 1)
path = path.Substring( 0, path.IndexOf("? "))
b = System.Text.Enc oding.ASCII.Get Bytes(postData)
Try
Dim req As HttpWebRequest = CType(WebReques t.Create(path),
HttpWebRequest)
req.Method = "POST"
req.ContentType = "applicatio n/x-www-form-urlencoded"
req.ContentLeng th = b.Length
Dim reqStream As Stream = req.GetRequestS tream
reqStream.Write (b, 0, b.Length)

Dim res As HttpWebResponse = CType(req.GetRe sponse,
HttpWebResponse )
Dim strm As Stream = res.GetResponse Stream
Dim ds as New DataSet
ds.ReadXml(strm )

Catch ex As Exception
End Try