How to parse html with HTML::TreeBuilder?

Question

How to parse html with HTML::TreeBuilder?

348 Views Asked by Daniele At 26 April 2025 at 07:02

This is the code I'd like to parse

[...]
<div class="item" style="clear:left;">
 <div class="icon" style="background-image:url(http://nwn2db.com/assets/builder/icons/40x40/is_acidsplash.png);">
 </div>
  <h2>Acid Splash</h2>
   <p>Caster Level(s): Wizard / Sorcerer 0
   <br />Innate Level: 0
   <br />School: Conjuration
   <br />Descriptor(s): Acid
   <br />Component(s): Verbal, Somatic
   <br />Range: Medium
   <br />Area of Effect / Target: Single
   <br />Duration: Instant
   <br />Save: None
   <br />Spell Resistance: Yes
   <p>
   You fire a small orb of acid at the target for 1d3 points of acid damage.
 </div>
[...]

This is my algorithm:

my $text = '';

scan_child($spells);

print $text, "\n";

sub scan_child {
  my $element = $_[0];
  return if ($element->tag eq 'script' or
             $element->tag eq 'a');   # prune!
  foreach my $child ($element->content_list) {
    if (ref $child) {  # it's an element
      scan_child($child);  # recurse!
    } else {           # it's a text node!
      $child =~ s/(.*)\:/\\item \[$1\]/; #itemize
      $text .= $child;
      $text .= "\n";
    }
   }
  return;
}

It gets the pattern <key> : <value> and prunes garbage like <script> or <a>...</a>. I'd like to improve it in order to get <h2>...</h2> header and all the <p>...<p> block so I can add some LaTeX tags.

Any clue?

Thanks in advance.

Original Q&A

There are 2 best solutions below

**Miller** · Answer 1

Because this may be an XY Problem...

Mojo::DOM is a somewhat more modern framework for parsing HTML using css selectors. The following pulls the P element that you want from the document:

use strict;
use warnings;

use Mojo::DOM;

my $dom = Mojo::DOM->new(do {local $/; <DATA>});

for my $h2 ($dom->find('h2')->each) {
    next unless $h2->all_text eq 'Acid Splash';

    # Get following P
    my $next_p = $h2;
    while ($next_p = $next_p->next_sibling()) {
        last if $next_p->node eq 'tag' and $next_p->type eq 'p';
    }

    print $next_p;
}

__DATA__
<html>
<body>
<div class="item" style="clear:left;">
 <div class="icon" style="background-image:url(http://nwn2db.com/assets/builder/icons/40x40/is_acidsplash.png);">
 </div>
  <h2>Acid Splash</h2>
   <p>Caster Level(s): Wizard / Sorcerer 0
   <br />Innate Level: 0
   <br />School: Conjuration
   <br />Descriptor(s): Acid
   <br />Component(s): Verbal, Somatic
   <br />Range: Medium
   <br />Area of Effect / Target: Single
   <br />Duration: Instant
   <br />Save: None
   <br />Spell Resistance: Yes
   <p>
   You fire a small orb of acid at the target for 1d3 points of acid damage.
 </div>
 </body>
 </html>

Outputs:

<p>Caster Level(s): Wizard / Sorcerer 0
   <br>Innate Level: 0
   <br>School: Conjuration
   <br>Descriptor(s): Acid
   <br>Component(s): Verbal, Somatic
   <br>Range: Medium
   <br>Area of Effect / Target: Single
   <br>Duration: Instant
   <br>Save: None
   <br>Spell Resistance: Yes
   </p>

**Len Jaffe** · Answer 2

I use the look_down() method scan HTML. Using look_down() I can return first get a list of all the divs of class="item".

Then I can iterate of them, and find and process the h2 and the p, which I would then split using // as my splitter.

How to parse html with HTML::TreeBuilder?

There are 2 best solutions below

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