How can I retrieve the link with the highest number in it using Perl?

virtus has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I'm improving an old script that I had that downloaded some wallpapers for me. I need to know how many

pages of wallpapers one category have. Each link has the number of the page as its text, ie:

<a href="/planes-desktop-wallpapers/page/8">8</a>
<a href="/planes-desktop-wallpapers/page/9">9</a>
<a href="/planes-desktop-wallpapers/page/10">10</a>
[download]

So I need to capture the number ten, because then I can know for sure how many pages that category has.

I've been trying something like:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use warnings;
use WWW::Mechanize;
use HTML::TreeBuilder;
use List::Util qw(max);

...

my $site = "http://www.hdwallpapers.in
           /planes-desktop-  wallpapers.html";
$mech->get($site);
my @links = map {$_->text} grep {$_->text =~ m/\d+/}
$mech->find_all_links();
print max @links;
[download]

Problem is I'm also getting some junk in the array (not only numbers), so I get a compile error.

Can someone please shed some enlightenment here? tnx

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Re: How can I retrieve the link with the highest number in it using Perl? by toolic (Bishop) on Jul 10, 2013 at 01:31 UTC
Maybe use anchors? `my @links = map {$_->text} grep {$_->text =~ m/^\d+$/} $mech->find_all_links();` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: How can I retrieve the link with the highest number in it using Perl? by virtus (Initiate) on Jul 10, 2013 at 01:49 UTC
Hi, tnx for your fast reply, now its working. But please, explain me something... why do I have to call the find_all_links function with no arguments to it so my @links array gets filled? That was not much clear to me... one friend of mine was helping me with this script tnx for your time.	[reply]
Re^3: How can I retrieve the link with the highest number in it using Perl? by toolic (Bishop) on Jul 10, 2013 at 03:31 UTC
The documentation for find_all_links is at WWW::Mechanize	[reply]
Re^3: How can I retrieve the link with the highest number in it using Perl? by QM (Parson) on Jul 10, 2013 at 11:50 UTC
Why do I have to call the find_all_links function with no arguments to it so my @links array gets filled? Perhaps you were distracted by the multi-line statement? This: `my @links = map {$_->text} grep {$_->text =~ m/^\d+$/} $mech->find_all_links();` [download] is equivalent to this: `my @links = map {$_->text} grep {$_->text =~ m/^\d+$/} $mech->find_all +_links();` [download] (When I first read the original, I didn't see the lack of semicolon on line 1, which made me think it was an example from Damian's time reversed variables.) Then read right to left. -QM -- Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: How can I retrieve the link with the highest number in it using Perl? by virtus (Initiate) on Jul 10, 2013 at 19:56 UTC