NAME

HTML::Object - HTML Parser, Modifier and Query Interface

SYNOPSIS

    use HTML::Object;
    my $p = HTML::Object->new( debug => 5 );
    my $doc = $p->parse( $file, { utf8 => 1 } ) || die( $p->error, "\n" );
    print $doc->as_string;

or, using the HTML DOM implementation same as the Web API:

    use HTML::Object::DOM global_dom => 1;
    # then you can also use HTML::Object::XQuery for jQuery like DOM manipulation
    my $p = HTML::Object::DOM->new;
    my $doc = $p->parse_data( $some_html ) || die( $p->error, "\n" );
    $('div.inner')->after( "<p>Test</p>" );
    
    # returns an HTML::Object::DOM::Collection
    my $divs = $doc->getElementsByTagName( 'div' );
    my $new = $doc->createElement( 'div' );
    $new->setAttribute( id => 'newDiv' );
    $divs->[0]->parent->replaceChild( $new, $divs->[0] );
    # etc.

To enable fatal error and also implement try-catch (using Nice::Try) :

    use HTML::Object fatal_error => 1, try_catch => 1;

VERSION

    v0.3.1

DESCRIPTION

This module is yet another HTML parser, manipulation and query interface, but probably the most comprehensive one. It uses the C parser from HTML::Parser and has the unique particularity that it does not try to decode the entire html document tree only to re-encode it when printing out its data as string like so many other html parsers out there do. Instead, it modifies only the parts required. The rest is returned exactly as it was found in the HTML. This is faster and safer.

This module contains 144 modules to closely implement the HTML standard as documented on Mozilla documentation.

It uses an external json data dictionary file of html tags (html_tags_dict.json).

There are 3 ways to manipulate and query the html data:

1. HTML::Object::Element

This is lightweight and simple

2. HTML::Object::DOM

This is an alternative HTML parser also based on HTML::Parser, and that implements fully the Web API with DOM (Data Object Model), so you can query the HTML with perl equivalent to JavaScript methods of the Web API. It has been designed to be strictly identical to the Web API.

3. HTML::Object::XQuery

This interface provides a jQuery like API and requires the use of HTML::Object::DOM. However, this is not designed to be a perl implementation of JavaScript, but rather a perl implementation of DOM manipulation methods found in jQuery.

Note that this interface does not enforce HTML standard. It is up to you the developer to decide what value to use and where the HTML elements should go in the HTML tree and what to do with it.

METHODS

new

Instantiate a new HTML::Object object.

You need to instantiate a new object prior to parse any new document. It cannot be re-used to parse another document, or if you really wanted to, you would first need to unset "document" and unset "current_parent":

    $p->document( undef );
    $p->current_parent( undef );

But, it is just as fast to do:

    $p = HTML::Object->new;

add_comment

This is a parser method called that will add a comment to the stack of html elements.

add_declaration

This is a parser method called that will add a declaration to the stack of html elements.

add_default

This is a parser method called that will add a default html tag to the stack of html elements.

add_end

This is a parser method called that will add a closing html tag to the stack of html elements.

add_space

This is a parser method called that will add a space to the stack of html elements.

add_start

This is a parser method called that will add a starting html tag to the stack of html elements.

add_text

This is a parser method called that will add a text to the stack of html elements.

current_parent

Sets or gets the current parent, which must be an HTML::Object::Element object or an inheriting class.

dictionary

Returns an hash reference containing the HTML tags dictionary. Its structure is:

• dict

  This property reflects an hash containing all the known tags. Each tag has the following possible properties:

  • description

    String

  • is_deprecated

    Boolean value

  • is_empty

    Boolean value

  • is_inline

    Boolean value

  • is_svg

    Boolean value that describes whether this is a tag dedicated to svg.

  • link_in

    Array reference of HTML attributes containing links

  • ref

    The reference URL to the online web documentation for this tag.

• meta

  This property holds an hash reference containing the following meta information:

  • author

    String

  • updated

    ISO 8601 datetime

  • version

    Version number

document

Sets or gets the document HTML::Object::Document object.

get_definition

Get the hash definition for a given tag (case does not matter).

The tags definition is taken from the external file html_tags_dict.json that is provided with this package.

new_closing

Creates and returns a new closing html element HTML::Object::Closing, passing it any arguments provided.

new_comment

Creates and returns a new closing html element HTML::Object::Comment, passing it any arguments provided.

new_declaration

Creates and returns a new closing html element HTML::Object::Declaration, passing it any arguments provided.

new_document

Creates and returns a new closing html element HTML::Object::Document, passing it any arguments provided.

new_element

Creates and returns a new closing html element HTML::Object::Element, passing it any arguments provided.

new_space

Creates and returns a new closing html element HTML::Object::Space, passing it any arguments provided.

new_special

Provided with an HTML tag class name and hash or hash reference of options and this will load that class and instantiate an object passing it the options provided. It returns the object thus Instantiated.

This is used to instantiate object for special class to handle certain HTML tag, such as a

new_text

Creates and returns a new closing html element HTML::Object::Text, passing it any arguments provided.

parse

Provided with some data (see below), and some options as hash or hash reference and this will parse it and return a new HTML::Object::Document object.

Possible accepted data are:

code

"parse_data" will be called with it.

glob

"parse_data" will be called with it.

string

"parse_file" will be called with it.

Other reference will return an error.

parse_data

Provided with some data and some options as hash or hash reference and this will parse the given data and return a HTML::Object::Document object.

If the option utf8 is provided, the data received will be converted to utf8 using "decode" in Encode. If an error occurs decoding the data into utf8, the error will be set as an Module::Generic::Exception object and undef will be returned.

parse_file

Provided with a file path and some options as hash or hash reference and this will parse the file.

If the option utf8 is provided, the file will be opened with "binmode" in perlfunc set to utf8

It returns a new HTML::Object::Document

parse_url

Provided with an URI supported by LWP::UserAgent and this will issue a GET query and parse the resulting HTML data, and return a new HTML::Object::Document or HTML::Object::DOM::Document depending on which interface you use (either HTML::Object or HTML::Object::DOM.

If an error occurred, this will set an error and return undef.

You can get the response object with "response"

parser

Sets or gets a HTML::Parser object.

post_process

Provided with an HTML::Object::Element and this will post process its parsing.

response

Get the latest HTTP::Response object from the HTTP query made using "parse_url"

sanity_check

Provided with an HTML::Object::Element and this will perform some sanity checks and report the result on STDOUT.

set_dom

Provided with a HTML::Object::Document object and this sets the global variable $GLOBAL_DOM. This is particularly useful when using HTML::Object::XQuery to do things like:

    my $collection = $('div');

CREDITS

Throughout the documentation of this distribution, a lot of descriptions, references and examples have been borrowed from Mozilla. I have also contributed to improving their documentation by fixing bugs and typos on their site.

AUTHOR

Jacques Deguest <jack@deguest.jp>

SEE ALSO

HTML::Object::DOM, HTML::Object::Element, HTML::Object::XQuery

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

Copyright (c) 2021 DEGUEST Pte. Ltd.

You can use, copy, modify and redistribute this package and associated files under the same terms as Perl itself.

cpanm HTML::Object

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install HTML::Object