From: Peter Szinek <peter@...>
Date: 2007-03-19T20:50:20+09:00
Subject: Re: Pulling text from elements with REXML

Paul Willis wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I am using REXML to pull text from a NewsML document.
> 
> require 'rexml/document'
> include REXML
> file = File.new("Main_News.xml")
> doc = Document.new(file)
> root = doc.root
> puts
> root.elements["NewsItem/NewsComponent/NewsComponent[1]/NewsComponent/ContentItem/DataContent/nitf/body/body.head/hedline/hl1"]
> 
> Gives me...
> 
> <hl1>Blueprint to cut emissions unveiled</hl1>
> 
> Is there an easy way (ie something in REXML) to pull just the text
> without the containers <hl1> and </hl1>.

If I understood correctly, you need the text content of the node rather 
than the whole node. This can be accomplished with:

some_element.text

so you could do something like

root.elements[...your stuff_here...].to_a.each {|e| puts e.text}

HTH,
Peter
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