My questions are:

1) can I have the print statement in the subroutine "text" directed into a file or into an array for use outside of the package?
2) is there another way that I can approach this problem that I am completely missing other than HTML::Parser?

1) Sure you can. If you'd like to unshift/push $test1 onto an array, define a global array and pass it to test() as a reference and and return the reference. Or create an array within test() and pass an array reference back.
If you'd like to print into a file, that's certaily doable too. Open the output file, say print FH "$test[1]\n"; and voila!

2)I'm not sure. If you have something with a lot of HTML and you want text, then you have to parse it with something. WWW::Mech has a good reputation. HTML::TokeParser's pretty nice too.

It's kind of a drag that your sample data didn't contain anything that you're searcing for in @field. I assume you're searching for the three capital letters after the /, correct? Maybe you could just split the raw HTML on those.


In reply to Re: html::parser question by jpeg
in thread html::parser question by treebeard

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



  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.