I am filtering HTML pages and would like to bold every mention of the term 'Perl' in the body. Currently, I am doing this with the HTML::TreeBuilder module, as the following code demonstrates.

My question is: Is this the most effective/safest way to do this?

FYI, this code is actually being used in a HTML::Mason autohandler, in the filter section. In the real code, I put the return value back into $_, as required by Mason. Therefore, I can not use print statements or any other direct output from my process. This also ensures that I only change instances of perl that are text, not included in links, images, or other tags.

#! perl
use strict;
use warnings;

use HTML::TreeBuilder;
use HTML::AsSubs;

undef $/;
print processHTML(<DATA>);
exit;

sub processHTML {
    my $tree = HTML::TreeBuilder->new_from_content($_[0]);
    $tree->elementify();
    my @body = $tree->look_down("_tag", "body");
    for my $body (@body) {
        $body->objectify_text();
        my @perl_parts = $body->look_down("_tag", "~text",
                sub {$_[0]->attr('text') =~ /perl/i}
            );

        for my $perl_text ( @perl_parts ) {
            my @items = split(/(perl)/i, $perl_text->attr('text'));
            $_ = (/perl/i ? b($_) : $_) for @items ;
            $perl_text->replace_with(@items)->delete();
        }
        $body->deobjectify_text();
    }
    my $return = $tree->as_HTML;
    $tree->delete;
    $return;
}

__END__
<html>
<head>
<title>This title contains Perl but does not get changed.</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>This is some text containing the term 'perl'.</p>
<ol>
    <li>Unix</li>
    <li>Perl</li>
    <li>Linux</li>
</ol>
<p>Notice how the term perl in the following link doesn't change, but 
+the text does. 
<a href="http://www.perlmonks.org">Perlmonks.org</a></p>
</body>
</html>

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In reply to Is this the best way to use HTML::TreeBuilder to bold text in an HTML document? by johannz

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


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