in reply to my code error-ing out trying to grab html

per the advice given to me, i added $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new; after my variable declaration. The fixed the previous error (thanks so much)However, now my problem lies within my regex. Here's the updated code: 
#!/usr/bin/perl

use HTTP::Request;
use HTTP::Headers;
use LWP::UserAgent;

my(@ListingsUrls, $req, $ua, $responsecode, $res, $row, $url);
$ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;

    $url = "http://listings.test.com/aw/listings/list/category12";
    $request = new HTTP::Request('GET',$url);
    $ua->timeout(10);
    $response = $ua->request($request);
    my $responsecode = $response->code();
     next if $responsecode != 200;
                    
         
        @ARRAY_OF_LINES = (split "\n", $ua->request($request)->as_stri
+ng);
         $request->as_string;
         foreach $row (@ARRAY_OF_LINES) {
        chomp($row);
        print $row . "\n";
        }
        if ($row =~ (/Updated\s*:\s*\w+\s*-\s*\d{1,2}:\d{1,2}\d{1,2}\s
+* PST/)){
            print $1;
                        }else{
                            print "html didn't contain Updated";
                            }

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I added a print statement to $row and i can see what i am looking for(this is an excerpt from my console when the line print $row is executed): 
<tr>
        <td>
        <p></p><br>
<center>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="-1">
<b>Updated: Mar-11 23:05:50 PST</b>

[download]
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
thnx, Ray

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Re: Re: my code error-ing out trying to grab html
by davis (Vicar) on Mar 12, 2002 at 09:33 UTC
    Hi,
    You were correct - the regex isn't matching. Here's a fixed-up and /x modified version: 
    #!/usr/bin/perl -w 
use strict;
my $row = "Updated: Mar-11 23:05:50 PST";

if($row =~ /Updated\s*:              #The String "Updated", followed b
+y zero or more spaces, then a colon
           \s*\w+\s*-\s*\d{1,2}\s*   #This matches " Mar-11 "
           \d{1,2}:\d{1,2}:\d{1,2}   #The time
           \s*PST/x) {               #The timezone - do you really nee
+d to be this specific?
        print "Match\n";
} else {
        print "No Match\n";
}

    [download]
    On the other hand: should you really be using a regex for this at all?
    If it's a date, then Date::Calc could do very well for you (check out parse_date).
    I'd also recommend thinking about whether you really need to have " PST" in your regex at all - do all the "Updated" strings contain that timezone information?
    hope this helps
    davis
    Is this going out live?
    No, Homer, very few cartoons are broadcast live - it's a terrible strain on the animator's wrist
     Update: On re-reading your code, it appears that you're using parentheses to try and capture the whole string - these need to go inside the regex delimeters.
    And I won't even mention that you should be "use"ing "strict" and "warnings" ;-)
[reply]
[d/l]

      Break out the bulky, slow Date::Manip. 

      ...
use Date::Manip;

  if (/>Updated: (.*?)</ && $date = ParseDate($1)) {
    &do_something_with($date);
  } else {
    warn "no parsum date!\n";
    &fail_gracefully;
  }

      [download]

      Date::Manip does have the advantage of parsing almost anything that can be a date.

[reply]
[d/l]

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