I'm trying to use Hpricot to clean up the text in a big site full of old-style HTML. I'm just trying to do things like replacing literal quote characters with <q> and </q>. I'm hampered by the fact that my understanding of the HTML DOM comes from reading one web site yesterday and I don't know any javascript. Nonetheless, it seems that Hpricot should be able to easily give me all the text in the <body> element of each page because it has a traverse_text() method. The problem seems to be that if I apply it to a whole page, I get the text in the <head> element and all the methods for selecting seem to return an element, not a tree.
There is a get_subnode method but it doesn't seem to work as expected.
Thanks in advance for any help
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--
The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.
-Paul Valery, poet and philosopher (1871-1945)
Nevermind,
The reason get_subnode gives:
...hpricot/traverse.rb:23:in `get_subnode': undefined method `get_subnode_internal' for #<Hpricot::Doc:0x5c182c>
is because Why literally hasn't written get_subnode_internal yet. maybe I'll try to write it when/if i get some time.
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On Jul 31, 2006, at 6:17 AM, Chris Gehlker wrote:
I'm trying to use Hpricot to clean up the text in a big site full of old-style HTML. I'm just trying to do things like replacing literal quote characters with <q> and </q>. I'm hampered by the fact that my understanding of the HTML DOM comes from reading one web site yesterday and I don't know any javascript. Nonetheless, it seems that Hpricot should be able to easily give me all the text in the <body> element of each page because it has a traverse_text() method. The problem seems to be that if I apply it to a whole page, I get the text in the <head> element and all the methods for selecting seem to return an element, not a tree.
There is a get_subnode method but it doesn't seem to work as expected.
--
For blocks are better cleft with wedges,
Than tools of sharp or subtle edges,
And dullest nonsense has been found
By some to be the most profound.
-Samuel Butler,