Parsing HTML file

[ciri]

Hi everybody,

I parse an html file with NSXMLDocument object:

document = [[NSXMLDocument alloc] initWithData:receivedData options:NSXMLDocumentTidyHTML error:&errorXML];
		NSXMLElement *rootNode = [document rootElement];
		NSString *xpathQueryString = @"//a[@class='blu10_link']";
		NSArray *newItemsNodes = [rootNode nodesForXPath:xpathQueryString error:&errorXML];
		[self willChangeValueForKey:@"newItems"];
		
		[newItems release];
		[newItemsURL release];
		newItems = [[NSMutableArray array] retain];
		newItemsURL = [[NSMutableArray array] retain];
		for(NSXMLElement *node in newItemsNodes){
			NSString *relativeString = [[node attributeForName:@"title"] stringValue];
			NSString *relativeStringURL = [[node attributeForName:@"href"] stringValue];
			[newItems addObject:relativeString];	
			[newItemsURL addObject:relativeStringURL];
		}

And I work fine with this, but there are parts of html file that are enclosed in a html tag without some attributes. For example:

<table>
<tr>
<td> Some text </td>
</tr>
</table>

How can I take the text in this cases?

Thank you and sorry for my bad english but I'm italian

[lbendlin]

each XML node has a ".text" property which shoud give you what you need.

[ciri]

Sorry but i don't see any .text property

If you can, write me a little example to help me to understand.

Thanks.

[wuf810]

Originally Posted by ciri

Sorry but i don't see any .text property

If you can, write me a little example to help me to understand.

Thanks.

Check out XMLParser example app from Apple. It will show you how to achieve this.

[dustbyter]

Originally Posted by wuf810

Check out XMLParser example app from Apple. It will show you how to achieve this.

Remember there are two ways to parse an XML file.

1. Use the a DOM tree approach which is what you are trying todo
2. Use a streaming API like the example shown in the apple tutorial.

Try the streaming api as in the apple example, its not hard at all to set up.

Basically, its a set up to have events triggered when certain events occur in the xml file.

[ciri]

Ok, with the method

- (void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser foundCharacters:(NSString *)string

I can get the characters that aren't into the HTML tags.

But now I have a NSMutableString with a lot of characters. How do I take only the text I want?

Thanks.

[dustbyter]

Don't remember the method off hand, but there is an method that is ran when the endElement is reached.

At this point you have all the text from current element being processed.

It's up to you to pull just what you need.

For example if the tag you processed had the text:

Hello World...I mean Universe

If you wanted to take a portion of that string you need to pull it manually using the string manipulation API available to you.

[ciri]

Originally Posted by dustbyter

For example if the tag you processed had the text:

Hello World...I mean Universe

But I don't know how the string begins.

I know that the text is into a table without specific attributes.

For example:

<table colspan="2">
<tr>
<td>
the text that interests me
</td>
</table>

[wuf810]

Originally Posted by ciri

But I don't know how the string begins.

I know that the text is into a table without specific attributes.

For example:

<table colspan="2">
<tr>
<td>
the text that interests me
</td>
</table>

ciri.

I'm sorry to say this but you have just got to give it a try. You've been given enough information about how to progress...so go and give it a go.

If then you have further questions/issues, you can post your code and we can help.

Regards, M.