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HTML::Element(3pm) User Contributed Perl Documentation HTML::Element(3pm)
NAME
HTML::Element - Class for objects that represent HTML elements
SYNOPSIS
use HTML::Element;
$a = HTML::Element->new('a', href => 'http://www.perl.com/');
$a->push_content("The Perl Homepage");
$tag = $a->tag;
print "$tag starts out as:", $a->starttag, "\n";
print "$tag ends as:", $a->endtag, "\n";
print "$tag\'s href attribute is: ", $a->attr('href'), "\n";
$links_r = $a->extract_links();
print "Hey, I found ", scalar(@$links_r), " links.\n";
print "And that, as HTML, is: ", $a->as_HTML, "\n";
$a = $a->delete;
DESCRIPTION
(This class is part of the HTML::Tree dist.)
Objects of the HTML::Element class can be used to represent elements of
HTML document trees. These objects have attributes, notably attributes
that designates each element's parent and content. The content is an
array of text segments and other HTML::Element objects. A tree with
HTML::Element objects as nodes can represent the syntax tree for a HTML
document.
HOW WE REPRESENT TREES
It may occur to you to wonder what exactly a "tree" is, and how it's
represented in memory. Consider this HTML document:
<html lang='en-US'>
<head>
<title>Stuff</title>
<meta name='author' content='Jojo'>
</head>
<body>
<h1>I like potatoes!</h1>
</body>
</html>
Building a syntax tree out of it makes a tree-structure in memory that
could be diagrammed as:
html (lang='en-US')
/ \
/ \
/ \
head body
/\ \
/ \ \
/ \ \
title meta h1
| (name='author', |
"Stuff" content='Jojo') "I like potatoes"
This is the traditional way to diagram a tree, with the "root" at the
top, and it's this kind of diagram that people have in mind when they
say, for example, that "the meta element is under the head element
instead of under the body element". (The same is also said with
"inside" instead of "under" -- the use of "inside" makes more sense
when you're looking at the HTML source.)
Another way to represent the above tree is with indenting:
html (attributes: lang='en-US')
head
title
"Stuff"
meta (attributes: name='author' content='Jojo')
body
h1
"I like potatoes"
Incidentally, diagramming with indenting works much better for very
large trees, and is easier for a program to generate. The
"<$tree-"dump>> method uses indentation just that way.
However you diagram the tree, it's stored the same in memory -- it's a
network of objects, each of which has attributes like so:
element #1: _tag: 'html'
_parent: none
_content: [element #2, element #5]
lang: 'en-US'
element #2: _tag: 'head'
_parent: element #1
_content: [element #3, element #4]
element #3: _tag: 'title'
_parent: element #2
_content: [text segment "Stuff"]
element #4 _tag: 'meta'
_parent: element #2
_content: none
name: author
content: Jojo
element #5 _tag: 'body'
_parent: element #1
_content: [element #6]
element #6 _tag: 'h1'
_parent: element #5
_content: [text segment "I like potatoes"]
The "treeness" of the tree-structure that these elements comprise is
not an aspect of any particular object, but is emergent from the relat-
edness attributes (_parent and _content) of these element-objects and
from how you use them to get from element to element.
While you could access the content of a tree by writing code that says
"access the 'src' attribute of the root's first child's seventh child's
third child", you're more likely to have to scan the contents of a
tree, looking for whatever nodes, or kinds of nodes, you want to do
something with. The most straightforward way to look over a tree is to
"traverse" it; an HTML::Element method ("<$h-"traverse>>) is provided
for this purpose; and several other HTML::Element methods are based on
it.
(For everything you ever wanted to know about trees, and then some, see
Niklaus Wirth's Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs or Donald
Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 1.)
BASIC METHODS
$h = HTML::Element->new('tag', 'attrname' => 'value', ... )
This constructor method returns a new HTML::Element object. The
tag name is a required argument; it will be forced to lowercase.
Optionally, you can specify other initial attributes at object cre-
ation time.
$h->attr('attr') or $h->attr('attr', 'value')
Returns (optionally sets) the value of the given attribute of $h.
The attribute name (but not the value, if provided) is forced to
lowercase. If trying to read the value of an attribute not present
for this element, the return value is undef. If setting a new
value, the old value of that attribute is returned.
If methods are provided for accessing an attribute (like "$h->tag"
for "_tag", "$h->content_list", etc. below), use those instead of
calling attr "$h->attr", whether for reading or setting.
Note that setting an attribute to "undef" (as opposed to "", the
empty string) actually deletes the attribute.
$h->tag() or $h->tag('tagname')
Returns (optionally sets) the tag name (also known as the generic
identifier) for the element $h. In setting, the tag name is always
converted to lower case.
There are four kinds of "pseudo-elements" that show up as
HTML::Element objects:
Comment pseudo-elements
These are element objects with a "$h->tag" value of "~comment",
and the content of the comment is stored in the "text"
attribute ("$h->attr("text")"). For example, parsing this code
with HTML::TreeBuilder...
<!-- I like Pie.
Pie is good
-->
produces an HTML::Element object with these attributes:
"_tag",
"~comment",
"text",
" I like Pie.\n Pie is good\n "
Declaration pseudo-elements
Declarations (rarely encountered) are represented as HTML::Ele-
ment objects with a tag name of "~declaration", and content in
the "text" attribute. For example, this:
<!DOCTYPE foo>
produces an element whose attributes include:
"_tag", "~declaration", "text", "DOCTYPE foo"
Processing instruction pseudo-elements
PIs (rarely encountered) are represented as HTML::Element
objects with a tag name of "~pi", and content in the "text"
attribute. For example, this:
<?stuff foo?>
produces an element whose attributes include:
"_tag", "~pi", "text", "stuff foo?"
(assuming a recent version of HTML::Parser)
~literal pseudo-elements
These objects are not currently produced by HTML::TreeBuilder,
but can be used to represent a "super-literal" -- i.e., a lit-
eral you want to be immune from escaping. (Yes, I just made
that term up.)
That is, this is useful if you want to insert code into a tree
that you plan to dump out with "as_HTML", where you want, for
some reason, to suppress "as_HTML"'s normal behavior of amp-
quoting text segments.
For expample, this:
my $literal = HTML::Element->new('~literal',
'text' => 'x < 4 & y > 7'
);
my $span = HTML::Element->new('span');
$span->push_content($literal);
print $span->as_HTML;
prints this:
<span>x < 4 & y > 7</span>
Whereas this:
my $span = HTML::Element->new('span');
$span->push_content('x < 4 & y > 7');
# normal text segment
print $span->as_HTML;
prints this:
<span>x < 4 & y > 7</span>
Unless you're inserting lots of pre-cooked code into existing
trees, and dumping them out again, it's not likely that you'll
find "~literal" pseudo-elements useful.
$h->parent() or $h->parent($new_parent)
Returns (optionally sets) the parent (aka "container") for this
element. The parent should either be undef, or should be another
element.
You should not use this to directly set the parent of an element.
Instead use any of the other methods under "Structure-Modifying
Methods", below.
Note that not($h->parent) is a simple test for whether $h is the
root of its subtree.
$h->content_list()
Returns a list of the child nodes of this element -- i.e., what
nodes (elements or text segments) are inside/under this element.
(Note that this may be an empty list.)
In a scalar context, this returns the count of the items, as you
may expect.
$h->content()
This somewhat deprecated method returns the content of this ele-
ment; but unlike content_list, this returns either undef (which you
should understand to mean no content), or a reference to the array
of content items, each of which is either a text segment (a string,
i.e., a defined non-reference scalar value), or an HTML::Element
object. Note that even if an arrayref is returned, it may be a
reference to an empty array.
While older code should feel free to continue to use $h->content,
new code should use $h->content_list in almost all conceivable
cases. It is my experience that in most cases this leads to sim-
pler code anyway, since it means one can say:
@children = $h->content_list;
instead of the inelegant:
@children = @{$h->content || []};
If you do use $h->content (or $h->content_array_ref), you should
not use the reference returned by it (assuming it returned a refer-
ence, and not undef) to directly set or change the content of an
element or text segment! Instead use "content_refs_list" or any of
the other methods under "Structure-Modifying Methods", below.
$h->content_array_ref()
This is like "content" (with all its caveats and deprecations)
except that it is guaranteed to return an array reference. That
is, if the given node has no "_content" attribute, the "content"
method would return that undef, but "content_array_ref" would set
the given node's "_content" value to "[]" (a reference to a new,
empty array), and return that.
$h->content_refs_list
This returns a list of scalar references to each element of $h's
content list. This is useful in case you want to in-place edit any
large text segments without having to get a copy of the current
value of that segment value, modify that copy, then use the
"splice_content" to replace the old with the new. Instead, here
you can in-place edit:
foreach my $item_r ($h->content_refs_list) {
next if ref $$item_r;
$$item_r =~ s/honour/honor/g;
}
You could currently achieve the same affect with:
foreach my $item (@{ $h->content_array_ref }) {
# deprecated!
next if ref $item;
$item =~ s/honour/honor/g;
}
...except that using the return value of $h->content or $h->con-
tent_array_ref to do that is deprecated, and just might stop work-
ing in the future.
$h->implicit() or $h->implicit($bool)
Returns (optionally sets) the "_implicit" attribute. This
attribute is a flag that's used for indicating that the element was
not originally present in the source, but was added to the parse
tree (by HTML::TreeBuilder, for example) in order to conform to the
rules of HTML structure.
$h->pos() or $h->pos($element)
Returns (and optionally sets) the "_pos" (for "current position")
pointer of $h. This attribute is a pointer used during some
parsing operations, whose value is whatever HTML::Element element
at or under $h is currently "open", where $h->insert_element(NEW)
will actually insert a new element.
(This has nothing to do with the Perl function called "pos", for
controlling where regular expression matching starts.)
If you set $h->pos($element), be sure that $element is either $h,
or an element under $h.
If you've been modifying the tree under $h and are no longer sure
$h->pos is valid, you can enforce validity with:
$h->pos(undef) unless $h->pos->is_inside($h);
$h->all_attr()
Returns all this element's attributes and values, as key-value
pairs. This will include any "internal" attributes (i.e., ones not
present in the original element, and which will not be represented
if/when you call $h->as_HTML). Internal attributes are distin-
guished by the fact that the first character of their key (not
value! key!) is an underscore ("_").
Example output of "$h->all_attr()" : "'_parent', "[object_value]" ,
'_tag', 'em', 'lang', 'en-US', '_content', "[array-ref value].
$h->all_attr_names()
Like all_attr, but only returns the names of the attributes.
Example output of "$h->all_attr()" : "'_parent', '_tag', 'lang',
'_content', ".
$h->all_external_attr()
Like "all_attr", except that internal attributes are not present.
$h->all_external_attr_names()
Like "all_external_attr_names", except that internal attributes'
names are not present.
$h->id() or $h->id($string)
Returns (optionally sets to $string) the "id" attribute.
"$h->id(undef)" deletes the "id" attribute.
$h->idf() or $h->idf($string)
Just like the "id" method, except that if you call "$h->idf()" and
no "id" attribute is defined for this element, then it's set to a
likely-to-be-unique value, and returned. (The "f" is for "force".)
STRUCTURE-MODIFYING METHODS
These methods are provided for modifying the content of trees by adding
or changing nodes as parents or children of other nodes.
$h->push_content($element_or_text, ...)
Adds the specified items to the end of the content list of the ele-
ment $h. The items of content to be added should each be either a
text segment (a string), an HTML::Element object, or an arrayref.
Arrayrefs are fed thru "$h->new_from_lol(that_arrayref)" to convert
them into elements, before being added to the content list of $h.
This means you can say things concise things like:
$body->push_content(
['br'],
['ul',
map ['li', $_]
qw(Peaches Apples Pears Mangos)
]
);
See "new_from_lol" method's documentation, far below, for more
explanation.
The push_content method will try to consolidate adjacent text seg-
ments while adding to the content list. That's to say, if $h's
content_list is
('foo bar ', $some_node, 'baz!')
and you call
$h->push_content('quack?');
then the resulting content list will be this:
('foo bar ', $some_node, 'baz!quack?')
and not this:
('foo bar ', $some_node, 'baz!', 'quack?')
If that latter is what you want, you'll have to override the fea-
ture of consolidating text by using splice_content, as in:
$h->splice_content(scalar($h->content_list),0,'quack?');
Similarly, if you wanted to add 'Skronk' to the beginning of the
content list, calling this:
$h->unshift_content('Skronk');
then the resulting content list will be this:
('Skronkfoo bar ', $some_node, 'baz!')
and not this:
('Skronk', 'foo bar ', $some_node, 'baz!')
What you'd to do get the latter is:
$h->splice_content(0,0,'Skronk');
$h->unshift_content($element_or_text, ...)
Just like "push_content", but adds to the beginning of the $h ele-
ment's content list.
The items of content to be added should each be either a text seg-
ment (a string), an HTML::Element object, or an arrayref (which is
fed thru "new_from_lol").
The unshift_content method will try to consolidate adjacent text
segments while adding to the content list. See above for a discus-
sion of this.
$h->splice_content($offset, $length, $element_or_text, ...)
Detaches the elements from $h's list of content-nodes, starting at
$offset and continuing for $length items, replacing them with the
elements of the following list, if any. Returns the elements (if
any) removed from the content-list. If $offset is negative, then
it starts that far from the end of the array, just like Perl's nor-
mal "splice" function. If $length and the following list is omit-
ted, removes everything from $offset onward.
The items of content to be added (if any) should each be either a
text segment (a string), an arrayref (which is fed thru
"new_from_lol"), or an HTML::Element object that's not already a
child of $h.
$h->detach()
This unlinks $h from its parent, by setting its 'parent' attribute
to undef, and by removing it from the content list of its parent
(if it had one). The return value is the parent that was detached
from (or undef, if $h had no parent to start with). Note that nei-
ther $h nor its parent are explicitly destroyed.
$h->detach_content()
This unlinks $h all of $h's children from $h, and returns them.
Note that these are not explicitly destroyed; for that, you can
just use $h->delete_content.
$h->replace_with( $element_or_text, ... )
This replaces $h in its parent's content list with the nodes speci-
fied. The element $h (which by then may have no parent) is
returned. This causes a fatal error if $h has no parent. The list
of nodes to insert may contain $h, but at most once. Aside from
that possible exception, the nodes to insert should not already be
children of $h's parent.
Also, note that this method does not destroy $h -- use
$h->replace_with(...)->delete if you need that.
$h->preinsert($element_or_text...)
Inserts the given nodes right BEFORE $h in $h's parent's content
list. This causes a fatal error if $h has no parent. None of the
given nodes should be $h or other children of $h. Returns $h.
$h->postinsert($element_or_text...)
Inserts the given nodes right AFTER $h in $h's parent's content
list. This causes a fatal error if $h has no parent. None of the
given nodes should be $h or other children of $h. Returns $h.
$h->replace_with_content()
This replaces $h in its parent's content list with its own content.
The element $h (which by then has no parent or content of its own)
is returned. This causes a fatal error if $h has no parent. Also,
note that this does not destroy $h -- use $h->replace_with_con-
tent->delete if you need that.
$h->delete_content()
Clears the content of $h, calling $i->delete for each content ele-
ment. Compare with $h->detach_content.
Returns $h.
$h->delete()
Detaches this element from its parent (if it has one) and explic-
itly destroys the element and all its descendants. The return
value is undef.
Perl uses garbage collection based on reference counting; when no
references to a data structure exist, it's implicitly destroyed --
i.e., when no value anywhere points to a given object anymore, Perl
knows it can free up the memory that the now-unused object occu-
pies.
But this fails with HTML::Element trees, because a parent element
always holds references to its children, and its children elements
hold references to the parent, so no element ever looks like it's
not in use. So, to destroy those elements, you need to call
$h->delete on the parent.
$h->clone()
Returns a copy of the element (whose children are clones (recur-
sively) of the original's children, if any).
The returned element is parentless. Any '_pos' attributes present
in the source element/tree will be absent in the copy. For that
and other reasons, the clone of an HTML::TreeBuilder object that's
in mid-parse (i.e, the head of a tree that HTML::TreeBuilder is
elaborating) cannot (currently) be used to continue the parse.
You are free to clone HTML::TreeBuilder trees, just as long as: 1)
they're done being parsed, or 2) you don't expect to resume parsing
into the clone. (You can continue parsing into the original; it is
never affected.)
HTML::Element->clone_list(...nodes...)
or: ref($h)->clone_list(...nodes...)
Returns a list consisting of a copy of each node given. Text seg-
ments are simply copied; elements are cloned by calling $it->clone
on each of them.
$h->normalize_content
Normalizes the content of $h -- i.e., concatenates any adjacent
text nodes. (Any undefined text segments are turned into
empty-strings.) Note that this does not recurse into $h's descen-
dants.
$h->delete_ignorable_whitespace()
This traverses under $h and deletes any text segments that are
ignorable whitespace. You should not use this if $h under a 'pre'
element.
$h->insert_element($element, $implicit)
Inserts (via push_content) a new element under the element at
$h->pos(). Then updates $h->pos() to point to the inserted ele-
ment, unless $element is a prototypically empty element like "br",
"hr", "img", etc. The new $h->pos() is returned. This method is
useful only if your particular tree task involves setting $h->pos.
DUMPING METHODS
$h->dump()
$h->dump(*FH) ; # or *FH{IO} or $fh_obj
Prints the element and all its children to STDOUT (or to a speci-
fied filehandle), in a format useful only for debugging. The
structure of the document is shown by indentation (no end tags).
$h->as_HTML() or $h->as_HTML($entities)
or $h->as_HTML($entities, $indent_char)
or $h->as_HTML($entities, $indent_char, \%optional_end_tags)
Returns a string representing in HTML the element and its descen-
dants. The optional argument $entities specifies a string of the
entities to encode. For compatibility with previous versions,
specify '<>&' here. If omitted or undef, all unsafe characters are
encoded as HTML entities. See HTML::Entities for details.
If $indent_char is specified and defined, the HTML to be output is
intented, using the string you specify (which you probably should
set to "\t", or some number of spaces, if you specify it).
If "\%optional_end_tags" is specified and defined, it should be a
reference to a hash that holds a true value for every tag name
whose end tag is optional. Defaults to "\%HTML::Element::optional-
EndTag", which is an alias to %HTML::Tagset::optionalEndTag, which,
at time of writing, contains true values for "p, li, dt, dd". A
useful value to pass is an empty hashref, "{}", which means that no
end-tags are optional for this dump. Otherwise, possibly consider
copying %HTML::Tagset::optionalEndTag to a hash of your own, adding
or deleting values as you like, and passing a reference to that
hash.
$h->as_text()
$h->as_text(skip_dels => 1)
Returns a string consisting of only the text parts of the element's
descendants.
Text under 'script' or 'style' elements is never included in what's
returned. If "skip_dels" is true, then text content under "del"
nodes is not included in what's returned.
$h->as_trimmed_text(...)
This is just like as_text(...) except that leading and trailing
whitespace is deleted, and any internal whitespace is collapsed.
$h->as_XML()
Returns a string representing in XML the element and its descen-
dants.
The XML is not indented.
$h->as_Lisp_form()
Returns a string representing the element and its descendants as a
Lisp form. Unsafe characters are encoded as octal escapes.
The Lisp form is indented, and contains external ("href", etc.) as
well as internal attributes ("_tag", "_content", "_implicit",
etc.), except for "_parent", which is omitted.
Current example output for a given element:
("_tag" "img" "border" "0" "src" "pie.png" "usemap" "#main.map")
$h->starttag() or $h->starttag($entities)
Returns a string representing the complete start tag for the ele-
ment. I.e., leading "<", tag name, attributes, and trailing ">".
Attributes values that don't consist entirely of digits are sur-
rounded with double-quotes, and appropriate characters are encoded.
If $entities is omitted or undef, all unsafe characters are encoded
as HTML entities. See HTML::Entities for details. If you specify
some value for $entities, remember to include the double-quote
character in it. (Previous versions of this module would basically
behave as if '&">' were specified for $entities.)
$h->endtag()
Returns a string representing the complete end tag for this ele-
ment. I.e., "</", tag name, and ">".
SECONDARY STRUCTURAL METHODS
These methods all involve some structural aspect of the tree; either
they report some aspect of the tree's structure, or they involve
traversal down the tree, or walking up the tree.
$h->is_inside('tag', ...) or $h->is_inside($element, ...)
Returns true if the $h element is, or is contained anywhere inside
an element that is any of the ones listed, or whose tag name is any
of the tag names listed.
$h->is_empty()
Returns true if $h has no content, i.e., has no elements or text
segments under it. In other words, this returns true if $h is a
leaf node, AKA a terminal node. Do not confuse this sense of
"empty" with another sense that it can have in SGML/HTML/XML termi-
nology, which means that the element in question is of the type
(like HTML's "hr", "br", "img", etc.) that can't have any content.
That is, a particular "p" element may happen to have no content, so
$that_p_element->is_empty will be true -- even though the prototyp-
ical "p" element isn't "empty" (not in the way that the prototypi-
cal "hr" element is).
If you think this might make for potentially confusing code, con-
sider simply using the clearer exact equivalent: not($h->con-
tent_list)
$h->pindex()
Return the index of the element in its parent's contents array,
such that $h would equal
$h->parent->content->[$h->pindex]
or
($h->parent->content_list)[$h->pindex]
assuming $h isn't root. If the element $h is root, then $h->pindex
returns undef.
$h->left()
In scalar context: returns the node that's the immediate left sib-
ling of $h. If $h is the leftmost (or only) child of its parent
(or has no parent), then this returns undef.
In list context: returns all the nodes that're the left siblings of
$h (starting with the leftmost). If $h is the leftmost (or only)
child of its parent (or has no parent), then this returns
empty-list.
(See also $h->preinsert(LIST).)
$h->right()
In scalar context: returns the node that's the immediate right sib-
ling of $h. If $h is the rightmost (or only) child of its parent
(or has no parent), then this returns undef.
In list context: returns all the nodes that're the right siblings
of $h, starting with the leftmost. If $h is the rightmost (or
only) child of its parent (or has no parent), then this returns
empty-list.
(See also $h->postinsert(LIST).)
$h->address()
Returns a string representing the location of this node in the
tree. The address consists of numbers joined by a '.', starting
with '0', and followed by the pindexes of the nodes in the tree
that are ancestors of $h, starting from the top.
So if the way to get to a node starting at the root is to go to
child 2 of the root, then child 10 of that, and then child 0 of
that, and then you're there -- then that node's address is
"0.2.10.0".
As a bit of a special case, the address of the root is simply "0".
I forsee this being used mainly for debugging, but you may find
your own uses for it.
$h->address($address)
This returns the node (whether element or text-segment) at the
given address in the tree that $h is a part of. (That is, the
address is resolved starting from $h->root.)
If there is no node at the given address, this returns undef.
You can specify "relative addressing" (i.e., that indexing is sup-
posed to start from $h and not from $h->root) by having the address
start with a period -- e.g., $h->address(".3.2") will look at child
3 of $h, and child 2 of that.
$h->depth()
Returns a number expressing $h's depth within its tree, i.e., how
many steps away it is from the root. If $h has no parent (i.e., is
root), its depth is 0.
$h->root()
Returns the element that's the top of $h's tree. If $h is root,
this just returns $h. (If you want to test whether $h is the root,
instead of asking what its root is, just test not($h->parent).)
$h->lineage()
Returns the list of $h's ancestors, starting with its parent, and
then that parent's parent, and so on, up to the root. If $h is
root, this returns an empty list.
If you simply want a count of the number of elements in $h's lin-
eage, use $h->depth.
$h->lineage_tag_names()
Returns the list of the tag names of $h's ancestors, starting with
its parent, and that parent's parent, and so on, up to the root.
If $h is root, this returns an empty list. Example output: "('em',
'td', 'tr', 'table', 'body', 'html')"
$h->descendants()
In list context, returns the list of all $h's descendant elements,
listed in pre-order (i.e., an element appears before its con-
tent-elements). Text segments DO NOT appear in the list. In
scalar context, returns a count of all such elements.
$h->descendents()
This is just an alias to the "descendants" method.
$h->find_by_tag_name('tag', ...)
In list context, returns a list of elements at or under $h that
have any of the specified tag names. In scalar context, returns
the first (in pre-order traversal of the tree) such element found,
or undef if none.
$h->find('tag', ...)
This is just an alias to "find_by_tag_name". (There was once going
to be a whole find_* family of methods, but then look_down filled
that niche, so there turned out not to be much reason for the ver-
boseness of the name "find_by_tag_name".)
$h->find_by_attribute('attribute', 'value')
In a list context, returns a list of elements at or under $h that
have the specified attribute, and have the given value for that
attribute. In a scalar context, returns the first (in pre-order
traversal of the tree) such element found, or undef if none.
This method is deprecated in favor of the more expressive
"look_down" method, which new code should use instead.
$h->look_down( ...criteria... )
This starts at $h and looks thru its element descendants (in
pre-order), looking for elements matching the criteria you specify.
In list context, returns all elements that match all the given
criteria; in scalar context, returns the first such element (or
undef, if nothing matched).
There are three kinds of criteria you can specify:
(attr_name, attr_value)
This means you're looking for an element with that value for
that attribute. Example: "alt", "pix!". Consider that you can
search on internal attribute values too: "_tag", "p".
(attr_name, qr/.../)
This means you're looking for an element whose value for that
attribute matches the specified Regexp object.
a coderef
This means you're looking for elements where
coderef->(each_element) returns true. Example:
my @wide_pix_images
= $h->look_down(
"_tag", "img",
"alt", "pix!",
sub { $_[0]->attr('width') > 350 }
);
Note that "(attr_name, attr_value)" and "(attr_name, qr/.../)" cri-
teria are almost always faster than coderef criteria, so should
presumably be put before them in your list of criteria. That is,
in the example above, the sub ref is called only for elements that
have already passed the criteria of having a "_tag" attribute with
value "img", and an "alt" attribute with value "pix!". If the
coderef were first, it would be called on every element, and then
what elements pass that criterion (i.e., elements for which the
coderef returned true) would be checked for their "_tag" and "alt"
attributes.
Note that comparison of string attribute-values against the string
value in "(attr_name, attr_value)" is case-INsensitive! A crite-
rion of "('align', 'right')" will match an element whose "align"
value is "RIGHT", or "right" or "rIGhT", etc.
Note also that "look_down" considers "" (empty-string) and undef to
be different things, in attribute values. So this:
$h->look_down("alt", "")
will find elements with an "alt" attribute, but where the value for
the "alt" attribute is "". But this:
$h->look_down("alt", undef)
is the same as:
$h->look_down(sub { !defined($_[0]->attr('alt')) } )
That is, it finds elements that do not have an "alt" attribute at
all (or that do have an "alt" attribute, but with a value of undef
-- which is not normally possible).
Note that when you give several criteria, this is taken to mean
you're looking for elements that match all your criterion, not just
any of them. In other words, there is an implicit "and", not an
"or". So if you wanted to express that you wanted to find elements
with a "name" attribute with the value "foo" or with an "id"
attribute with the value "baz", you'd have to do it like:
@them = $h->look_down(
sub {
# the lcs are to fold case
lc($_[0]->attr('name')) eq 'foo'
or lc($_[0]->attr('id')) eq 'baz'
}
);
Coderef criteria are more expressive than "(attr_name, attr_value)"
and "(attr_name, qr/.../)" criteria, and all "(attr_name,
attr_value)" and "(attr_name, qr/.../)" criteria could be expressed
in terms of coderefs. However, "(attr_name, attr_value)" and
"(attr_name, qr/.../)" criteria are a convenient shorthand. (In
fact, "look_down" itself is basically "shorthand" too, since any-
thing you can do with "look_down" you could do by traversing the
tree, either with the "traverse" method or with a routine of your
own. However, "look_down" often makes for very concise and clear
code.)
$h->look_up( ...criteria... )
This is identical to $h->look_down, except that whereas
$h->look_down basically scans over the list:
($h, $h->descendants)
$h->look_up instead scans over the list
($h, $h->lineage)
So, for example, this returns all ancestors of $h (possibly includ-
ing $h itself) that are "td" elements with an "align" attribute
with a value of "right" (or "RIGHT", etc.):
$h->look_up("_tag", "td", "align", "right");
$h->traverse(...options...)
Lengthy discussion of HTML::Element's unnecessary and confusing
"traverse" method has been moved to a separate file: HTML::Ele-
ment::traverse
$h->attr_get_i('attribute')
In list context, returns a list consisting of the values of the
given attribute for $self and for all its ancestors starting from
$self and working its way up. Nodes with no such attribute are
skipped. ("attr_get_i" stands for "attribute get, with inheri-
tance".) In scalar context, returns the first such value, or undef
if none.
Consider a document consisting of:
<html lang='i-klingon'>
<head><title>Pati Pata</title></head>
<body>
<h1 lang='la'>Stuff</h1>
<p lang='es-MX' align='center'>
Foo bar baz <cite>Quux</cite>.
</p>
<p>Hooboy.</p>
</body>
</html>
If $h is the "cite" element, $h->attr_get_i("lang") in list context
will return the list ('es-MX', 'i-klingon'). In scalar context, it
will return the value 'es-MX'.
If you call with multiple attribute names...
$h->attr_get_i('a1', 'a2', 'a3')
...in list context, this will return a list consisting of the val-
ues of these attributes which exist in $self and its ancestors. In
scalar context, this returns the first value (i.e., the value of
the first existing attribute from the first element that has any of
the attributes listed). So, in the above example,
$h->attr_get_i('lang', 'align');
will return:
('es-MX', 'center', 'i-klingon') # in list context
or
'es-MX' # in scalar context.
But note that this:
$h->attr_get_i('align', 'lang');
will return:
('center', 'es-MX', 'i-klingon') # in list context
or
'center' # in scalar context.
$h->tagname_map()
Scans across $h and all its descendants, and makes a hash (a refer-
ence to which is returned) where each entry consists of a key
that's a tag name, and a value that's a reference to a list to all
elements that have that tag name. I.e., this method returns:
{
# Across $h and all descendants...
'a' => [ ...list of all 'a' elements... ],
'em' => [ ...list of all 'em' elements... ],
'img' => [ ...list of all 'img' elements... ],
}
(There are entries in the hash for only those tagnames that occur
at/under $h -- so if there's no "img" elements, there'll be no
"img" entry in the hashr(ref) returned.)
Example usage:
my $map_r = $h->tagname_map();
my @heading_tags = sort grep m/^h\d$/s, keys %$map_r;
if(@heading_tags) {
print "Heading levels used: @heading_tags\n";
} else {
print "No headings.\n"
}
$h->extract_links() or $h->extract_links(@wantedTypes)
Returns links found by traversing the element and all of its chil-
dren and looking for attributes (like "href" in an "a" element, or
"src" in an "img" element) whose values represent links. The
return value is a reference to an array. Each element of the array
is reference to an array with four items: the link-value, the ele-
ment that has the attribute with that link-value, and the name of
that attribute, and the tagname of that element. (Example:
"['http://www.suck.com/'," $elem_obj ", 'href', 'a']".) You may or
may not end up using the element itself -- for some purposes, you
may use only the link value.
You might specify that you want to extract links from just some
kinds of elements (instead of the default, which is to extract
links from all the kinds of elements known to have attributes whose
values represent links). For instance, if you want to extract
links from only "a" and "img" elements, you could code it like
this:
for (@{ $e->extract_links('a', 'img') }) {
my($link, $element, $attr, $tag) = @$_;
print
"Hey, there's a $tag that links to ",
$link, ", in its $attr attribute, at ",
$element->address(), ".\n";
}
$h->simplify_pres
In text bits under PRE elements that are at/under $h, this routine
nativizes all newlines, and expands all tabs.
That is, if you read a file with lines delimited by "\cm\cj"'s, the
text under PRE areas will have "\cm\cj"'s instead of "\n"'s. Call-
ing $h->nativize_pre_newlines on such a tree will turn "\cm\cj"'s
into "\n"'s.
Tabs are expanded to however many spaces it takes to get to the
next 8th column -- the usual way of expanding them.
$h->same_as($i)
Returns true if $h and $i are both elements representing the same
tree of elements, each with the same tag name, with the same
explicit attributes (i.e., not counting attributes whose names
start with "_"), and with the same content (textual, comments,
etc.).
Sameness of descendant elements is tested, recursively, with
"$child1->same_as($child_2)", and sameness of text segments is
tested with "$segment1 eq $segment2".
$h = HTML::Element->new_from_lol(ARRAYREF)
Resursively constructs a tree of nodes, based on the (non-cyclic)
data structure represented by ARRAYREF, where that is a reference
to an array of arrays (of arrays (of arrays (etc.))).
In each arrayref in that structure, different kinds of values are
treated as follows:
* Arrayrefs
Arrayrefs are considered to designate a sub-tree representing
children for the node constructed from the current arrayref.
* Hashrefs
Hashrefs are considered to contain attribute-value pairs to add
to the element to be constructed from the current arrayref
* Text segments
Text segments at the start of any arrayref will be considered
to specify the name of the element to be constructed from the
current araryref; all other text segments will be considered to
specify text segments as children for the current arrayref.
* Elements
Existing element objects are either inserted into the treelet
constructed, or clones of them are. That is, when the lol-tree
is being traversed and elements constructed based what's in it,
if an existing element object is found, if it has no parent,
then it is added directly to the treelet constructed; but if it
has a parent, then "$that_node->clone" is added to the treelet
at the appropriate place.
An example will hopefully make this more obvious:
my $h = HTML::Element->new_from_lol(
['html',
['head',
[ 'title', 'I like stuff!' ],
],
['body',
{'lang', 'en-JP', _implicit => 1},
'stuff',
['p', 'um, p < 4!', {'class' => 'par123'}],
['div', {foo => 'bar'}, '123'],
]
]
);
$h->dump;
Will print this:
<html> @0
<head> @0.0
<title> @0.0.0
"I like stuff!"
<body lang="en-JP"> @0.1 (IMPLICIT)
"stuff"
<p class="par123"> @0.1.1
"um, p < 4!"
<div foo="bar"> @0.1.2
"123"
And printing $h->as_HTML will give something like:
<html><head><title>I like stuff!</title></head>
<body lang="en-JP">stuff<p class="par123">um, p < 4!
<div foo="bar">123</div></body></html>
You can even do fancy things with "map":
$body->push_content(
# push_content implicitly calls new_from_lol on arrayrefs...
['br'],
['blockquote',
['h2', 'Pictures!'],
map ['p', $_],
$body2->look_down("_tag", "img"),
# images, to be copied from that other tree.
],
# and more stuff:
['ul',
map ['li', ['a', {'href'=>"$_.png"}, $_ ] ],
qw(Peaches Apples Pears Mangos)
],
);
@elements = HTML::Element->new_from_lol(ARRAYREFS)
Constructs several elements, by calling new_from_lol for every
arrayref in the ARRAYREFS list.
@elements = HTML::Element->new_from_lol(
['hr'],
['p', 'And there, on the door, was a hook!'],
);
# constructs two elements.
$h->objectify_text()
This turns any text nodes under $h from mere text segments
(strings) into real objects, pseudo-elements with a tag-name of
"~text", and the actual text content in an attribute called "text".
(For a discussion of pseudo-elements, see the "tag" method, far
above.) This method is provided because, for some purposes, it is
convenient or necessary to be able, for a given text node, to ask
what element is its parent; and clearly this is not possible if a
node is just a text string.
Note that these "~text" objects are not recognized as text nodes by
methods like as_text. Presumably you will want to call $h->objec-
tify_text, perform whatever task that you needed that for, and then
call $h->deobjectify_text before calling anything like $h->as_text.
$h->deobjectify_text()
This undoes the effect of $h->objectify_text. That is, it takes
any "~text" pseudo-elements in the tree at/under $h, and deletes
each one, replacing each with the content of its "text" attribute.
Note that if $h itself is a "~text" pseudo-element, it will be
destroyed -- a condition you may need to treat specially in your
calling code (since it means you can't very well do anything with
$h after that). So that you can detect that condition, if $h is
itself a "~text" pseudo-element, then this method returns the value
of the "text" attribute, which should be a defined value; in all
other cases, it returns undef.
(This method assumes that no "~text" pseudo-element has any chil-
dren.)
$h->number_lists()
For every UL, OL, DIR, and MENU element at/under $h, this sets a
"_bullet" attribute for every child LI element. For LI children of
an OL, the "_bullet" attribute's value will be something like "4.",
"d.", "D.", "IV.", or "iv.", depending on the OL element's "type"
attribute. LI children of a UL, DIR, or MENU get their "_bullet"
attribute set to "*". There should be no other LIs (i.e., except
as children of OL, UL, DIR, or MENU elements), and if there are,
they are unaffected.
$h->has_insane_linkage
This method is for testing whether this element or the elements
under it have linkage attributes (_parent and _content) whose val-
ues are deeply aberrant: if there are undefs in a content list; if
an element appears in the content lists of more than one element;
if the _parent attribute of an element doesn't match its actual
parent; or if an element appears as its own descendant (i.e., if
there is a cyclicity in the tree).
This returns empty list (or false, in scalar context) if the sub-
tree's linkage methods are sane; otherwise it returns two items (or
true, in scalar context): the element where the error occurred, and
a string describing the error.
This method is provided is mainly for debugging and troubleshooting
-- it should be quite impossible for any document constructed via
HTML::TreeBuilder to parse into a non-sane tree (since it's not the
content of the tree per se that's in question, but whether the tree
in memory was properly constructed); and it should be impossible
for you to produce an insane tree just thru reasonable use of nor-
mal documented structure-modifying methods. But if you're con-
structing your own trees, and your program is going into infinite
loops as during calls to traverse() or any of the secondary struc-
tural methods, as part of debugging, consider calling is_insane on
the tree.
BUGS
* If you want to free the memory associated with a tree built of
HTML::Element nodes, then you will have to delete it explicitly. See
the $h->delete method, above.
* There's almost nothing to stop you from making a "tree" with cyclici-
ties (loops) in it, which could, for example, make the traverse method
go into an infinite loop. So don't make cyclicities! (If all you're
doing is parsing HTML files, and looking at the resulting trees, this
will never be a problem for you.)
* There's no way to represent comments or processing directives in a
tree with HTML::Elements. Not yet, at least.
* There's (currently) nothing to stop you from using an undefined value
as a text segment. If you're running under "perl -w", however, this
may make HTML::Element's code produce a slew of warnings.
NOTES ON SUBCLASSING
You are welcome to derive subclasses from HTML::Element, but you should
be aware that the code in HTML::Element makes certain assumptions about
elements (and I'm using "element" to mean ONLY an object of class
HTML::Element, or of a subclass of HTML::Element):
* The value of an element's _parent attribute must either be undef or
otherwise false, or must be an element.
* The value of an element's _content attribute must either be undef or
otherwise false, or a reference to an (unblessed) array. The array may
be empty; but if it has items, they must ALL be either mere strings
(text segments), or elements.
* The value of an element's _tag attribute should, at least, be a
string of printable characters.
Moreover, bear these rules in mind:
* Do not break encapsulation on objects. That is, access their con-
tents only thru $obj->attr or more specific methods.
* You should think twice before completely overriding any of the meth-
ods that HTML::Element provides. (Overriding with a method that calls
the superclass method is not so bad, tho.)
SEE ALSO
HTML::Tree; HTML::TreeBuilder; HTML::AsSubs; HTML::Tagset; and, for the
morbidly curious, HTML::Element::traverse.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 1995-1998 Gisle Aas, 1999-2001 Sean M. Burke.
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of mer-
chantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
AUTHOR
Original author Gisle Aas <gisle@aas.no>; current maintainer Sean M.
Burke, <sburke@cpan.org>
perl v5.8.7 2005-09-28 HTML::Element(3pm)