Python HTML: HTMLParser, Read Markup

Use the html.parser module. Import HTMLParser and implement a simple class.

HTML. In HTML, we find tags, attributes and data. We could write custom methods to parse these. But in Python we can instead use the HTMLParser class from the html.parser module. We derive a class from HTMLParser to add more features.Strings

Example. This example implements a class that derives from HTMLParser. It uses the inheritance syntax. This TagParser class is not fully effective on some HTML documents. It works on some tags, like title tags, but not with nested elements.Class

Methods: In the class, we specify 2 methods: handle_starttag and handle_data. Other methods can be specified.

Here: We just set a field "tag" to the name of the current start tag in handle_starttag.

And: Then when we encounter data, in handle_data, we use the previous tag name to help identify that data.

Caution: This approach is not ideal, but if you are just searching for simple tags, like title or h1 elements, it works.

Python program that uses html.parser from html.parser import HTMLParser # A class that inherits from HTMLParser. # ... It implements two methods. class TagParser(HTMLParser): def handle_starttag(self, tag, attrs): # Set "tag" field to the name of the opened tag. self.tag = tag def handle_data(self, data): # Print data within currently-open tag. print(self.tag + ":", data) parser = TagParser() parser.feed("<h1>Python</h1>" + "<p>Is cool.</p>"); Output h1: Python p: Is cool.

Feed. We call the feed method on the HTMLParser instance. With feed, we "feed" string data to the parser. It then internally reads the characters in the string. And it calls your specified methods, if the required elements are found.

Tip: You can specify any Python statements within your class that derives from HTMLParser.

And: This makes it possible to develop a custom HTML parser. It erases the need to handle tedious HTML syntax in custom code.

Methods. There are many methods on HTMLParser that you can specify. Attributes are received as attrs in the handle_starttag method: this is a list of tuples. More detailed examples for attributes (and comments) are available on the Python site.html.parser: python.org

Tip: You can loop over the attributes (attrs) list like any other list. The for-loop is ideal.

List

Summary. HTML markup is far from trivial to parse. HTML is common. And for this reason many edge cases have emerged: few parsers can handle them all. Using a prebuilt class, like HTMLParser, makes building a special parser in Python easier.Remove HTML Tags

The Dev Codes

.Net

.NET Array Dictionary List String 2D Async DataTable Dates DateTime Enum File For Foreach Format IEnumerable If IndexOf Lambda LINQ Parse Path Process Property Regex Replace Sort Split Static StringBuilder Substring Switch Tuple

Java

Core Array ArrayList HashMap String 2D Cast Character Console Deque Duplicates File For Format HashSet If IndexOf Lambda Math ParseInt Process Random Regex Replace Sort Split StringBuilder Substring Switch Vector While

TheDeveloperBlog.com

Python HTML: HTMLParser, Read Markup

Related Links:

.Net

Java

Related Links