Table::Extract unblessed reference

thekestrel has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi Monks,
I'm trying to parse some table content out of a HTML page and was having some trouble so I've whipped up a dummy table and script and I'm getting an error stating that I 'Can't call method "rows" on unblessed reference at ./s.pl line 25'. Here is the dummy html file...

<html>
<body>

<table align="center">
<tr><td>Name</td><td>Blah</td></tr>
<tr><td>bill</td><td>fdagdfg</td></tr>
<tr><td>ted</td><td>sdfsdf</td></tr>
</table>

</body>
</html>
[download]

and the script....

#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;
use HTML::TableExtract;

#my $te = HTML::TableExtract->new ( depth => 1, count => 2 );
my $te = HTML::TableExtract->new ( attribs => { align => 'center' } );

print "Start\n";

my $data;
{
local( $/, *FILE);
open FILE, "blah.html" or die "Could not open file , $!\n";
$data = <FILE>;
close (FILE);
}
print $data;

$te->parse($data);
print "table stuff:\n";
foreach my $ts ( $te->tables ) {
        print "Table\n";
        foreach my $row ( $ts->rows ) {
                print "R        ", join(',', @$row), "\n";
        }
}
[download]

I'm sure this is probably quite simple, but at this hour its eluding me so I was hoping someone might be able to explain what is going on.

Regards Paul

Comment on Table::Extract unblessed reference Select or Download Code

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Re: Table::Extract unblessed reference by GrandFather (Saint) on Jul 29, 2005 at 23:53 UTC
tables () is depricated and should be replaced by table_states (). Read more... Fixed code (546 Bytes) Read more... Sample data and output (599 Bytes) Perl is Huffman encoded by design.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Table::Extract unblessed reference by mojotoad (Monsignor) on Aug 01, 2005 at 06:49 UTC
as for deprecated methods, see my comment above -- it's the other way around. table_states() is deprecated, tables() is the shortened version. Both still work at the moment. Matt	[reply]
Re^3: Table::Extract unblessed reference by GrandFather (Saint) on Aug 01, 2005 at 07:12 UTC
I was going to quote from the current documentation to show how confusing it is. I realised that not only is the Deprecation section of the documentation confusing, but it proposes changes that are down right nasty because they involve various gratuitous breaking changes to the current interface. Somehow I'm not surprised that about half of those replying to OP were confused! Perl is Huffman encoded by design.	[reply]
Re^4: Table::Extract unblessed reference by mojotoad (Monsignor) on Aug 01, 2005 at 07:38 UTC
Re: Table::Extract unblessed reference by johnnywang (Priest) on Jul 29, 2005 at 23:21 UTC
$te->tables() is deprecated, you can use $te->table_states().	[reply]
Re^2: Table::Extract unblessed reference by mojotoad (Monsignor) on Aug 01, 2005 at 06:45 UTC
Hmm, it's the other way around. table_states() and associated _state() methods are deprecated, the shortened versions are de rigueur* now. Matt	[reply]
Re: Table::Extract unblessed reference by kwaping (Priest) on Jul 29, 2005 at 23:18 UTC
I wonder if this line (line 74 of the module source) has anything to do with it: `sub new { my $that = shift; my $class = ref($that) \|\| $that; #<-- (line 74) # [snip] bless $self, $class; }` [download] I've never seen a class name determined that way before. ref($that) will return the type of reference if $that is a reference. That doesn't seem right, does it? I'm thinking maybe the module author meant to use a conditional operator there instead.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Table::Extract unblessed reference by chromatic (Archbishop) on Jul 29, 2005 at 23:24 UTC
If `$that` is not a reference, ref returns a false value and the constructor uses the value of `$that` literally as the class name. In effect, you can call `new()` as a class or an object method and receive a new object back. I consider that a bad design decision, but good luck trying to convince people that, when the documentation recommends it....	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Table::Extract unblessed reference by mojotoad (Monsignor) on Aug 01, 2005 at 06:39 UTC
I consider that a bad design decision, but good luck trying to convince people that, when the documentation recommends it.... Actually, I agree with this. That little snippet is an artifact from back when I wrote the original code. Since then I've changed my mind about that trick. Matt	[reply]
Re: Table::Extract unblessed reference by mojotoad (Monsignor) on Aug 01, 2005 at 07:00 UTC
Hi Paul, What version of HTML::TableExtract are you using? I recently fixed an attribute-related extraction bug. The current version is 2.03. Matt	[reply]
Re^2: Table::Extract unblessed reference by thekestrel (Friar) on Aug 01, 2005 at 20:50 UTC
Hi Matt, I asked the sys-admin of the server I'm writing some code for to install the module...should have thought of the versioning.... it turns out he installed 1.10.. Regards Paul.	[reply]
Re: Table::Extract unblessed reference by mojotoad (Monsignor) on Aug 02, 2005 at 15:49 UTC
Yikes! After conversing with Grandfather it turns out that the source of the confusion is version 1.10 of HTML::TableExtract. After clearing up my own confusion, since I was comparing 2.x version of the docs, I finally went back and looked at the 1.10 documentation. It is indeed confusing. Since then, of course, I've moved on to the 2.x series and the deprecations have actually taken place. Cheers, Matt	[reply]