Re: HTML::Element accessing "internal attributes" the proper way

A quick look at the HTML::Element documentation suggests using the content_list method, as in my $date = ($d->content_list)[1]. If there was no element 1 in the content list (as when the element is empty), this will set $date to undef and might produce a warning.

Alternately, your use of content was very close: the content method returns an arrayref or undef, so you want my $date = $d->content->[1] but note that that will crash if the element has no content, so you might want to use eval: my $date = eval { $d->content->[1] } which will set $date to undef (and set $@ to an error about attempting to dereference something that was not a reference) if the element has no content.

(All code obviously untested.)

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Re^2: HTML::Element accessing "internal attributes" the proper way by LanX (Saint) on Dec 25, 2020 at 06:55 UTC
> his will set $date to undef and might produce a warning. this would surprise me `DB<71> use warnings; $a=(1..2)[9] DB<72>` [download] > so you might want to use eval: `my $date = eval { $d->content->[1] }` Thats why the use is of `->content` is discouraged and `->content_array_ref` is offered `$content_array_ref = $h->content_array_ref(); # never undef` [download] "This is like content (with all its caveats and deprecations) except that it is guaranteed to return an array reference." > (All code obviously untested.) dito! :) Cheers Rolf _{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :) Wikisyntax for the Monastery}	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: HTML::Element accessing "internal attributes" the proper way by jcb (Parson) on Dec 26, 2020 at 01:30 UTC
I said "might" because I was not sure off the top of my head whether reading off the end of a list produces a warning in Perl or not. As the documentation says, `content_array_ref` is just as deprecated as `content`, with `content_list` being the preferred interface for new code.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: HTML::Element accessing "internal attributes" the proper way (updated) by LanX (Saint) on Dec 26, 2020 at 02:54 UTC
> As the documentation says, `content_array_ref` is just as deprecated as `content` Not really, I can't see this in the documentation. And the author seems to be a bit confused about the inner mechanics of Perl. update After further reading. .. the issue seems to be that the ref returned is the one of an internal attribute `_content` , which "still" allows direct write access to children elements, but that's strongly discouraged. But as long as you are only reading and not writing, I can't see a reason to deprecated the whole method. Cheers Rolf _{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :) Wikisyntax for the Monastery}	[reply] [d/l] [select]

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