•Re: HTML::Tree(Builder) in 6 minutes

Also consider XML::LibXML, which despite its name, can be coaxed into reading HTML, and then provides DOM and XPath interfaces into your HTML tree. It's also far faster than HTML::Tree, keeping the tree in C space, only converting to Perl scalars when necessary.

I wrote a column about using it to extract data from a web page.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

Comment on •Re: HTML::Tree(Builder) in 6 minutes

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Re: HTML::Tree(Builder) in 6 minutes by Anonymous Monk on Nov 30, 2004 at 19:16 UTC
XML::LibXML is very fast, but it can barely parse 1% of the web pages one can find on the Internet because it expects too strict HTML. That's why your 8-lines Perl program at the end of your column doesn't work. Tree::Builder is very slow and does not provide DOM nor XPath. I think that there is nothing in Perl that can parse real web pages while beeing fast and giving access to DOM or XPath. fred	[reply]
Re^2: HTML::Tree(Builder) in 6 minutes by mirod (Canon) on Nov 07, 2009 at 07:53 UTC
A little late to the party... but for future reference, HTML::TreeBuilder::XPath gives you XPath on an HTML::Tree object. And I agree with XML::LibXML not being great at dealing with "real" HTML.	[reply]