in reply to HTML::TableExtract problem handling merged cells across rows

You have an off-by-one error in your data, your expectations are wrong

This is actually row 5 column 4 not column 1  <td class=3Dxl32 x:num=3D"7258831">R5Col1</td>

thus this is column 7 so its dropped <td class=3Dxl29>TSH5555 this data gets dropped but should not</td>

So fix your data or work around it or something else entirely

Here is how I found out 

#!/usr/bin/perl --
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dump qw/ dd /;
use HTML::TableExtract;
Main( @ARGV );
exit( 0 );
sub Main {
    my $te = HTML::TableExtract->new();
    $te->parse( SkewHtml() );
    $te->eof;
    $te->tables_dump('show_content', ',' );
    dd( $te->rows );
} ## end of Main

sub SkewHtml {
    my $html= q{
<html><head><title>skew test 2</title></head>
<body>
<table border=1>
<tr>
    <td>head0</td>
    <td>head1</td>
    <td>head2</td>
    <td>head3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td colspan=4> <b>0/0</b>  colspan=4 <br>  0/0 undef undef undef <
+br> "0/0"  "0/0"  "0/0"  "0/0" </td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td rowspan=2> <b>1/0</b>  rowspan=2 <br> 1/0 1/1 1/2 1/3 </td>
    <td> 1/1 </td>
    <td> 1/2  </td>
    <td> 1/3  </td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td colspan=2 rowspan=3> <b>2/1</b> colspan=2 rowspan=3 <br> undef
+ 2/1 undef 2/3 <br> "1/0" "2/1" "2/1" "2/3"  </td>
    <td> 2/3 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td> <b>3/0</b> <br> 3/0 undef undef 3/3 <br>  "3/0" "2/1"  "2/1" 
+ "3/3"  </td>
    <td> 3/3 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td> <b>4/0</b> <br> 4/0 undef undef 4/3 <br>  "4/0" "2/1"  "2/1" 
+ "4/3"   </td>
    <td> 4/3 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td colspan=2> <b>5/0</b> colspan=2 <br> 5/0 undef 5/2 5/3 <br> "5
+/0" "5/0" "5/2" "5/3" </td>
    <td> 5/2 </td>
    <td> 5/3 </td>
</tr>
</table>
<pre>
TABLE(0, 0):
head0,head1,head2,head3
 0/0  colspan=4  ,,,
 1/0  rowspan=2  , 1/1 , 1/2  , 1/3  
, 2/1 colspan=2 rowspan=3  ,, 2/3 
 3/0  ,,, 3/3 
 4/0  ,,, 4/3 
 5/0 colspan=2  ,, 5/2 , 5/3 
(
  ["head0", "head1", "head2", "head3"],
  [" 0/0  colspan=4  ", undef, undef, undef],
  [" 1/0  rowspan=2  ", " 1/1 ", " 1/2  ", " 1/3  "],
  [undef, " 2/1 colspan=2 rowspan=3  ", undef, " 2/3 "],
  [" 3/0  ", undef, undef, " 3/3 "],
  [" 4/0  ", undef, undef, " 4/3 "],
  [" 5/0 colspan=2  ", undef, " 5/2 ", " 5/3 "],
)
</pre>
</body>
</html>
    };
    $html =~ s{^\s+|\s+$}{}gm;
    $html =~ s{(<br>.+?)</td>}{<!-- $1 --> </td>}gm;
    $html =~ s{rowspan=3}{rowspan=3D2}g;
    return $html;
} ## end of SkewHtml

__END__
TABLE(0, 0):
head0,head1,head2,head3
 0/0  colspan=4  ,,,
 1/0  rowspan=2  , 1/1 , 1/2  , 1/3  
, 2/1 colspan=2 rowspan=3D2  ,, 2/3 
 3/0  ,,, 3/3 
 4/0  ,,, 4/3 
 5/0 colspan=2  ,, 5/2 , 5/3 
(
  ["head0", "head1", "head2", "head3"],
  [" 0/0  colspan=4  ", undef, undef, undef],
  [" 1/0  rowspan=2  ", " 1/1 ", " 1/2  ", " 1/3  "],
  [undef, " 2/1 colspan=2 rowspan=3D2  ", undef, " 2/3 "],
  [" 3/0  ", undef, undef, " 3/3 "],
  [" 4/0  ", undef, undef, " 4/3 "],
  [" 5/0 colspan=2  ", undef, " 5/2 ", " 5/3 "],
)

[download]
head0 head1 head2 head3
0/0 colspan=4
0/0 undef undef undef
"0/0" "0/0" "0/0" "0/0"
1/0 rowspan=2
1/0 1/1 1/2 1/3 		1/1 1/2 1/3
2/1 colspan=2 rowspan=3
undef 2/1 undef 2/3
"1/0" "2/1" "2/1" "2/3" 		2/3
3/0
3/0 undef undef 3/3
"3/0" "2/1" "2/1" "3/3" 		3/3
4/0
4/0 undef undef 4/3
"4/0" "2/1" "2/1" "4/3" 		4/3
5/0 colspan=2
5/0 undef 5/2 5/3
"5/0" "5/0" "5/2" "5/3" 		5/2 5/3 
TABLE(0, 0):
head0,head1,head2,head3
 0/0  colspan=4  ,,,
 1/0  rowspan=2  , 1/1 , 1/2  , 1/3  
, 2/1 colspan=2 rowspan=3  ,, 2/3 
 3/0  ,,, 3/3 
 4/0  ,,, 4/3 
 5/0 colspan=2  ,, 5/2 , 5/3 
(
  ["head0", "head1", "head2", "head3"],
  [" 0/0  colspan=4  ", undef, undef, undef],
  [" 1/0  rowspan=2  ", " 1/1 ", " 1/2  ", " 1/3  "],
  [undef, " 2/1 colspan=2 rowspan=3  ", undef, " 2/3 "],
  [" 3/0  ", undef, undef, " 3/3 "],
  [" 4/0  ", undef, undef, " 4/3 "],
  [" 5/0 colspan=2  ", undef, " 5/2 ", " 5/3 "],
)

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  • Comment on Re: HTML::TableExtract problem handling merged cells across rows (OBO rowspan colspan)
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Re^2: HTML::TableExtract problem handling merged cells across rows (OBO rowspan colspan)
by jtravillian (Initiate) on Feb 27, 2015 at 15:30 UTC

    Thank you for the response. You obviously spent some time looking at this.

    Unfortunately, I have little or no control over the incoming data. It's from my vendor's reporting system (aka my vendor's vendor) so I can't really change it.

    After reading your post, I investigated further. MS-Excel and I.E. (v8.0) both render the table data the way that the report writer intended. Everything is in the "correct and legible" column.

    But Firefox (v31.4) and Chrome (v40) (and apparently perl) all render the table data differently from MS-Excel and I.E. At least to the reader, it would be considered "incorrectly and not legible".

    I use "correct" and "incorrectly" as loose terms since I'm not intimately familiar with the HTML standards.

    Since the report comes to me as tagged table in a text file, is there a better way I should be parsing this data other than using HTML::TableExtract?

[reply]

      Not sure if this helps but I 'cleaned' up the tags with this regex to remove the 3D's

      s/(class|rowspan|style|colspan)=3D/$1=/g; 

      #!perl
use strict;
use HTML::TableExtract;
my $infile = 'test.htm';
open IN,'<',$infile or die "$!";
open OUT,'>','clean.htm' or die "$!";
my $html;
while (<IN>){
  s/(class|rowspan|style|colspan)=3D/$1=/g;
  print OUT $_;
  $html .= $_;
}

my @col = ('Column_1','Asset Tag','Washed Number','Asset Name','Cust C
+ode','Primary IP Address');
my $te = HTML::TableExtract->new( headers=>[@col],keep_headers => 1  )
+;
$te->parse( $html );

foreach my $ts ($te->tables) {
  print "\nLine 0 ", join(', ',$ts->row(0));  
  print "\nLine 1 ", join(', ',$ts->row(1));
  print "\nLine 2 ", join(', ',$ts->row(2));
  print "\nLine 3 ", join(', ',$ts->row(3));  
  print "\nLine 4 ", join(', ',$ts->row(4));  
  print "\n";
}

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