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

Here's a snippit of the web page I've parsed: 
<br> <span class="smalltype"><em>Date:</em></span>
Tue&nbsp;Sep&nbsp;13,&nbsp;2005&nbsp; 10:38
pm <br> <span class="smalltype"><em>Subject:</em></span>

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Using TokeParser, I've managed to assign the following to $GetDate: 
Tue&nbsp;Sep&nbsp;13,&nbsp;2005&nbsp; 10:38
pm

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Probably as a function of the module, I'm assuming it's compiling the HTML so that when I print back the contents, it comes out as: 
Tue Sep 13, 2005  10:38
pm

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Now because I want to split this guy up and create a timestamp from it, I figure the best plan is to assign it to an array with the following statement: 
my @date = split /\s+/, "$GetDate";

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And here's the contents of the array: 
0 
1 Tue Sep 13, 2005 
2 10:38
3 pm
4

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Obviously, the nonbreakable spaces (&nbsp;) are preventing me from getting the rest of it split apart. What do I do to clear this up?

I know there's some time modules out there, but I was just going to try this operation manually as I have the impression that's the best way to keep the speed up on an already deathly slow script. Is this a good plan, or am I just making more work for myself?

Thanks!

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Array problem when parsing HTML
by polettix (Vicar) on Sep 14, 2005 at 22:05 UTC
    A non-breakable space is, by definition, non-breakable :) - \s simply doesn't match. You can substitute it with plain spaces if you want. The following snippet will work with both decoded and encoded chunks of text:
    #!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use HTML::Entities qw( decode_entities );
 
my $EncodedDate = "Tue&nbsp;Sep&nbsp;13,&nbsp;2005&nbsp; 10:38
pm";
my $MixedDate = $EncodedDate . "\n------\n" . decode_entities($Encoded
+Date);

# $nbsp will contain the decoded version of &nbsp;
decode_entities(my $nbsp = '&nbsp;');

# Now, substitute all flavours of non-breakable-spaces
$MixedDate =~ s/&nbsp;|$nbsp/ /g; 

# Same split as before
my @date = split /\s+/, $MixedDate;
print "$_ $date[$_]\n" foreach 0 .. $#date;

__END__

0 Tue
1 Sep
2 13,
3 2005
4 10:38
5 pm
6 ------
7 Tue
8 Sep
9 13,
10 2005
11 10:38
12 pm

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    You'd probably prefer to split on /[\s:,]+/, anyway: it will get rid of the comma after the "13", and will split "10:38" as well.

    Flavio
    perl -ple'$_=reverse' <<<ti.xittelop@oivalf

    Don't fool yourself.
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Re: Array problem when parsing HTML
by InfiniteSilence (Curate) on Sep 14, 2005 at 21:31 UTC
    Why don't you use a regex to capture the relevant parts of the string? 

    perl -e "$f=q|Tue&nbsp;Sep&nbsp;13,&nbsp;2005&nbsp; 10:38|; $f=~s/\&nb
+sp;/ /g; if($f=~m/\S+\s+(\S+)\s+(\d+),\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+):(\d+)/){print 
+$1 . $2 . $3 . $4 . $5;};"
Sep1320051038

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    You can push them into an array or whatever and do what you want with it then.

    Celebrate Intellectual Diversity

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Re: Array problem when parsing HTML
by saberworks (Curate) on Sep 14, 2005 at 21:49 UTC
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