From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2007-08-27T23:52:51+09:00
Subject: Re: How to best extract Ruby strings from REXML::Text instances?

2007/8/26, Kenneth McDonald <kenneth.m.mcdonald@sbcglobal.net>:
> REXML is a great package and is making it very easy for me to extract
> data from web pages. However, I'm having trouble with extracting a file
> string value from text nodes. My understanding from reading the API doc
> is that saying something like
>
>     p a_textnode.value

I think you want "element.text".

irb(main):008:0> t=REXML::Document.new("<foo>bar</foo>")
=> <UNDEFINED> ... </>
irb(main):009:0> t.root.text
=> "bar"
irb(main):010:0> t.root.text.class
=> String

> should print out the string value of the textnode with special character
> entities back-substituted, eg. with " " put in place of "&nbsp;".
> However, I'm getting the XML-style value, i.e. I'm getting something like
>
>     &nbsp;15.16&nbsp;
>
> printed to the terminal, special character entities aren't being
> substituted for.
>
>
> Am I misinterpreting what .value does? Is there a better or other way to
> do this?
>
>
> Thanks,
> Ken
>
> P.S. Can anyone recommend a good XPath quick reference or summary?

I use this frequently:
http://www.w3schools.com/xpath/

and sometimes this:
http://www.zvon.org/xxl/XPathTutorial/General/examples.html

Kind regards

robert