From: David Masover <ninja@...>
Date: 2009-03-26T04:42:03+09:00
Subject: Re: Parsing xml

Phlip wrote:
>> Or you could explain that REXML is not an _external_ library. It 
>> comes with Ruby, so it's "free" to use. You never need to download 
>> and install it...
>
> Next, REXML will break if you point it at nearly any website.

Except the question was about XML, not HTML. And the document indicated:

http://www.shoe-g.com/index.rdf

seems to parse fine with rexml:

irb(main):001:0> require 'open-uri'
=> true
irb(main):002:0> require 'rexml/document'
=> true
irb(main):003:0> open('http://www.shoe-g.com/index.rdf'){|f| 
REXML::Document.new f}
=> <UNDEFINED> ... </>
irb(main):004:0> _.root
=> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf='http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#' 
xmlns:dc='http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/' 
xmlns:sy='http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/' 
xmlns:admin='http://webns.net/mvcb/' 
xmlns:cc='http://web.resource.org/cc/' xmlns='http://purl.org/rss/1.0/'> 
... </>

I'll second Nokogiri, but I think we agree on the main point: Use a 
library. Any library. The world does not need another hacked-together, 
home-grown, broken XML parser.