Re^3: XML::LibXML::XPathContext->string_value - should ALL of the descendant's text be there?

Actually, I *do* believe that the text "World" belongs to the b element and, therefore, not to the p element.

Sure, that's up to you. I can't speak to how other modules implemented it, but I'd refer you to the libxml2 documentation, and the Document Object Model Specification for all the "official" details.

Anyway, I described two ways you can get the text nodes of the current node. Using the XPath expression I showed is probably easiest. I can't really say more since you haven't described what it is you're trying to do with the document.

use warnings;
use strict;
use XML::LibXML;

my $doc = XML::LibXML->load_xml( string => <<'EOT' );
<html> 
    <head> <title>Title_Text</title> </head> 
    <body> 
        <p>paragraph_text</p>
        <div> 
            <div> 
                innnermost_text
            </div>
        </div> 
    </body> </html>
EOT

for my $node ($doc->findnodes('//*')) {
    print "<<<", $node->nodeName, ">>>\n";
    my @texts = map { $_->data } $node->findnodes('./text()');
    use Data::Dump; dd @texts; # Debug
}

__END__

<<<html>>>
(" \n    ", " \n    ", " ")
<<<head>>>
(" ", " ")
<<<title>>>
"Title_Text"
<<<body>>>
(" \n        ", "\n        ", " \n    ")
<<<p>>>
"paragraph_text"
<<<div>>>
(" \n            ", "\n        ")
<<<div>>>
" \n                innnermost_text\n            "
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You could also use XML::LibXML::SAX to get an event-based parser.

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Re^4: XML::LibXML::XPathContext->string_value - should ALL of the descendant's text be there? by bobn (Chaplain) on Aug 10, 2020 at 06:01 UTC
`$node->string_value();` Note this method is undocumented (there's a method with that name in XML::LibXML::NodeList, but your $nodes are XML::LibXML::Elements), you should use textContent instead. Yes, that's true. I can't reconstruct exactly what happened when I made this code, I got into the documentation for an apparently unrelated module, where `string_value` was documented. I'm tempted to erase the whole thing. However, this code of yours: `my @texts = map { $_->data } node->findnodes('./text()');` actually shows exactly what I'm talking about: the "innermost_text" is ONLY appearing in the output for it's innermost containing element, which is the last `<div>` element/node/whatever that you found with `$doc->findnodes('//')`. It's not in every element that it is inside of, like `<body>` or `<html>` That's what I was looking for! Thank you!!! What I was working on: I've been doing some Python XHTML parsing, and over there, it was talking about "tail text". It's really weird - it says that text that follows an element's closing tag belongs to that* element as "tail text" - NOT to the element that it is inside of. If you care, go to https://lxml.de/tutorial.html and search on "document-style". Anyhow, I was testing in Perl to see if it had anything like that, which I don't see. As far as using SAX parsers, I've used somewhat similar - HTML:: Parser or XML::Parser are similar, I think, you create callbacks for events that happen during parsing. Having discovered XPath, the event-driven parser now seems to me like a crude, primitive approach. I'm sure there are still places it applies. --Bob Niederman, All code given here is UNTESTED unless otherwise stated.	[reply] [d/l] [select]

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Re^4: XML::LibXML::XPathContext->string_value - should ALL of the descendant's text be there?
by bobn (Chaplain) on Aug 10, 2020 at 06:01 UTC

$node->string_value();
Note this method is undocumented (there's a method with that name in XML::LibXML::NodeList, but your $nodes are XML::LibXML::Elements), you should use textContent instead.

string_value

my @texts = map { $_->data } node->findnodes('./text()');

<div>

$doc->findnodes('//*')

<body>

<html>

--Bob Niederman,

All code given here is UNTESTED unless otherwise stated.

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