From: Chad Fowler <chad@...>
Date: 2003-10-13T20:14:45+09:00
Subject: Re: XPath and HTML

On Mon, 13 Oct 2003, David Corbin wrote:

# 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?
# 


Looks like a library mismatch.  I haven't seen this and I can't reproduce 
it.  What was the HTML you were using?

Chad