3 ms·
Yeah when I said XML parsers I was speaking generically. I tried many HTML and XML parsers as well has HTML sanitizers. They worked, maybe, 60% of the time. Hpr
by PHP-TROLL 17y ago
Yeah when I said XML parsers I was speaking generically. I tried many HTML and XML parsers as well has HTML sanitizers. They worked, maybe, 60% of the time. Hpricot regularly segfaulted, beautifulsoup didn't even begin to work. Even if I ran the HTML through tidy first it would fail to parse.
Most people are ignorant of how bad most of the HTML on the web is, it is simply unparseable.
- coderdude 17y ago>>Most people are ignorant of how bad most of the HTML on the web is, it is simply unparseable. And somehow using a regex to guess at all the possible combinations of "badness" is the correct way to go? You seem lost my friend. Everything you're saying is backwards to what someone who actually parses a lot of HTML "in the wild" would say on the topic. It sounds more like you're trying to cuss your way into being correct.
- PHP-TROLL 17y agoI'm not talking about parsing HTML. I'm talking about getting data out of HTML which is completely different. One doesn't need to guess at all possible combinations of badness using a regex, you just need to find the data you need and adjust the regex to the badness of that particular page. Do you know anyone that mines for data out of HTML "in the wild"? I didn't think so.
- jm4 17y agoMost people are ignorant of how bad most of the HTML on the web is, it is simply unparseable. If that was the case the web would be unusable. Any decent web browser will parse almost any garbage you throw at it. It can get complicated because you find yourself guessing at what the author's intent might have been or moving things around to make it semi-sane, but it's not only possible; it's done every day.