in reply to Re: Using Perl to snip the end off of HTML
in thread Using Perl to snip the end off of HTML

ww (and hv) - thanks. I'm going to work on digesting your code and respond.

BTW, while daydreaming, I thought of a "lateral solution". I know there are two classic means of parsing XML - stack based, reactive (SAX) and tree based, proactive (DOM). Couldn't a tree based module handle this easily:

pseudocode: 

my $node = tree.getbodynode.getlasttoplevelnode
delete tree.$node if ($node.type == blockquote)
(recurse)

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Voila! Any nesting would be irrelevant, since it wouldn't show up on the top level tree. Would this work? More importantly, is there a tree style HTML parser for Perl (the one I am familiar with is event based, tag based, and reactive)

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Re^3: Using Perl to snip the end off of HTML
by ww (Archbishop) on Jun 15, 2005 at 13:38 UTC

    Pay more attention to hv's critique (++!) than to my ugly code... and apologies for not writing the regexen in extended format with explanations in comments (If you need same I may be able to produce, but not quickly. workload heated up bigtime yesterday). But, back to hv's wisdom vs. mine: I'm (maybe) halfway decent at translating structure such as you showed into a minimally working regex, but I'm already busy trying to internalize his advice, which appears to be very good.

    That said, I am not entirely sure all his alternatives are applicable to your project: note that we appear to differ in our understandings of your intent.

    For example, if you wish to lose the blockquote tags, but not the editorial content they surround, as I read it, then the regexen MUST (TTBOMK) work on a string because not only the tags, but also the emails' 'editorial contents' span multiple '\n'. Even if so, though, I think his method of building the string is a large improvement over mine.

    re parser: believe prior comments mentioned several, which may or may not facilitiate your work.

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Re^3: Using Perl to snip the end off of HTML
by eastcoastcoder (Sexton) on Jun 17, 2005 at 04:49 UTC
    Here's what I came up with, based on the discussion: 
    use HTML::TokeParser::Simple;


sub remove_final_blockquotes
{
    my $html_string = shift;
    $html_string =~ s/\s+$//smg;        # remove trailing whitespace
    
    my $qty_blockquote = 0;
    my $scratch_pad = '';
    my $parser = HTML::TokeParser::Simple->new(string => $html_string)
+;
    $parser->unbroken_text(1);
    my $ret = '';
    
    while (my $token = $parser->get_token)
    {
        if ($token->is_start_tag('blockquote'))
        {
            $qty_blockquote++;
            #$ret .= "\nqty_blockquote-> $qty_blockquote";
        }
        
        if (! $qty_blockquote)
        {
            
            $ret .= $scratch_pad;        # We've left the blockquote, 
+so add it
                                        
            $scratch_pad = '';
            $ret .= $token->as_is();
        } else {
            $scratch_pad .= $token->as_is();
        }
        
        if ($token->is_end_tag('blockquote'))
        {
            $qty_blockquote--;
            #$ret .= "\nqty_blockquote-> $qty_blockquote";
        }
    }
    
    return $ret;
}

    [download]

    Also, please: Comments and criticism greatly appreciated!!

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