From: Andrew Timberlake <andrew@...>
Date: 2009-04-19T14:31:48+09:00
Subject: Re: String replacing help

On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 6:59 AM, Jeremy Woertink
<jeremywoertink@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm working with Mechanize doing some screen scraping. Because of the
> project, I have to use an older version of Mechanize for now, I'm using
> 0.8.4.
>
> The goal of what I'm trying to do is take a string and insert pipes '|'
> before words that are *not* inside of <a></a>.
>
> I have:
>>> template_body.class
> => Hpricot::Elements
>>> template_body.to_html
> => "<pre><a href=\"javascript:document.f6.SLID.value='F36';
> document.f6.submit();\" onMouseOut=\"window.status='';\"
> title=\"Select\" onMouseOver=\"window.status='Select'; return
> true;\">HEAD</a>&nbsp;\n  <a
> href=\"javascript:document.f6.SLID.value='F37'; document.f6.submit();\"
> onMouseOut=\"window.status='';\" title=\"Select\"
> onMouseOver=\"window.status='Select'; return true;\">TITLE</a>&nbsp;<a
> href=\"javascript:document.f6.SLID.value='F38'; document.f6.submit();\"
> onMouseOut=\"window.status='';\" title=\"Select\"
> onMouseOver=\"window.status='Select'; return true;\">\"test\"</a>\n<a
> href=\"javascript:document.f6.SLID.value='F39'; document.f6.submit();\"
> onMouseOut=\"window.status='';\" title=\"Select\"
> onMouseOver=\"window.status='Select'; return true;\">BODY</a>&nbsp;\n
> <a href=\"javascript:document.f6.SLID.value='F40';
> document.f6.submit();\" onMouseOut=\"window.status='';\"
> title=\"Select\" onMouseOver=\"window.status='Select'; return
> true;\">DIV</a>&nbsp;id&nbsp;<a
> href=\"javascript:document.f6.SLID.value='F41'; document.f6.submit();\"
> onMouseOut=\"window.status='';\" title=\"Select\"
> onMouseOver=\"window.status='Select'; return true;\">\"main-div\"</a>\n
> <a href=\"javascript:document.f6.SLID.value='F42';
> document.f6.submit();\" onMouseOut=\"window.status='';\"
> title=\"Select\" onMouseOver=\"window.status='Select'; return
> true;\">CSS-WITH-LINK</a>&nbsp;destination&nbsp;<a
> href=\"javascript:document.f6.SLID.value='F43'; document.f6.submit();\"
> onMouseOut=\"window.status='';\" title=\"Select\"
> onMouseOver=\"window.status='Select'; return true;\">TO</a>&nbsp;<a
> href=\"javascript:document.f6.SLID.value='F44'; document.f6.submit();\"
> onMouseOut=\"window.status='';\" title=\"Select\"
> onMouseOver=\"window.status='Select'; return true;\">:index</a>\n
> <a href=\"javascript:document.f6.SLID.value='F45';
> document.f6.submit();\" onMouseOut=\"window.status='';\"
> title=\"Select\" onMouseOver=\"window.status='Select'; return
> true;\">IMAGE</a>&nbsp;source&nbsp;<a
> href=\"javascript:document.f6.SLID.value='F46'; document.f6.submit();\"
> onMouseOut=\"window.status='';\" title=\"Select\"
> onMouseOver=\"window.status='Select'; return
> true;\">RENDER</a>&nbsp;image&nbsp;<a
> href=\"javascript:document.f6.SLID.value='F47'; document.f6.submit();\"
> onMouseOut=\"window.status='';\" title=\"Select\"
> onMouseOver=\"window.status='Select'; return true;\">@image</a>\n
> max-height&nbsp;<a href=\"javascript:document.f6.SLID.value='F48';
> document.f6.submit();\" onMouseOut=\"window.status='';\"
> title=\"Select\" onMouseOver=\"window.status='Select'; return
> true;\">m-h</a>\n</pre>"
>
>
> The words I'm trying to insert the pipe before have a non-breaking space
> tags around them. I had it working where I can iterate through
> everything and return a new string, but I end up losing all line breaks
> and non-breaking spaces using
>
>  new_body = ''
>      template_body.to_html.split("&nbsp;").each do |el|
>        el.split("\n").each do |e|
>          unless e.empty? or e =~ /<\/?[^>]*>/
>            e = '|' + e
>          end
>        end
>        new_body += el
>      end
>
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks,
> ~Jeremy
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
>
>

Does this work?:

in_a = false
result = ""
s.scan(/<[^>]+>|[^<]+/).each do |e|
  if e =~ /<a/
    in_a = true
    result << e
  elsif e =~ /<\/a/
    in_a = false
    result << e
  elsif !in_a && e =~ /\A\s*\w/
    result << "|#{e}"
  else
    result << e
  end
end
result


Andrew Timberlake
http://ramblingsonrails.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewtimberlake

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education" - Mark Twain