From: David Corbin <dcorbin@...>
Date: 2003-10-13T10:11:01+09:00
Subject: Re: XPath and HTML

On Sunday 12 October 2003 20:21, Chad Fowler wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Oct 2003, David Corbin wrote:
>
> # On Sunday 12 October 2003 17:36, Chad Fowler wrote:
> # > On Mon, 13 Oct 2003, David Corbin wrote:
> # >
> # > # Is there a library out there that let's me parse HTML and use XPath
> # > # expressions against it?  What is it?
> # > #
> # > # Thanks
> # > #
> # > #
> # >
> # > REXML (http://www.germane-software.com/software/rexml/) and
> # > HTML Parser2 (http://www.bike-nomad.com/ruby/)
> # >
> #
> # Are you saying you parse it with HTML Parser2, and then use the XPath
> support # out of the REXML?
> #
> Sort of.  I shouldn't have said "HTML Parser2".  The right name seems to
> be ruby-htmltools.  It integrates with REXML and allows you to do this:
>
> parser = HTMLTree::Parser.new(true, true)
> parser.feed(file.readlines.join)
> tree = parser.tree.html_node.as_rexml_document
> tree.elements.to_a('*/table').each do |element|
>   # do something with element
> end
>
> Chad

And if you get:
/usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.6/rexml/child.rb:21:in `initialize': undefined 
method `add' for #<HTMLTree::Element:0x40331a58> (NameError)
        from /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.6/rexml/comment.rb:23:in `initialize'
        from /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.6/html/xpath.rb:50:in `new'
        from /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.6/html/xpath.rb:50:in 
`as_rexml_document'
        from /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.6/html/xpath.rb:36:in 
`as_rexml_document'

would you attribute that to a) Bad HTML, b) library version mismatch, or c) 
something else?
-- 
David Corbin <dcorbin@machturtle.com>