Android : Parse HTML block of code

Question

I have the following piece of HTML code which I need to parse to retrieve the player name and the runs he has scored. In this case it's 'Ross Taylor' and 9. What's the best way to do parse this info? Don't want to use an HTML parser. Is REGEX the best way (I know people are dead against this! But I just want these 2 bits of info and hence don't want to use a parser)? I've been racking my brains on how I should figure out where the player name is in the html file and the consequent row which has the runs scored. The HTML comment part below is a hard coded one. I can reach this place. Then retrieve the name between the tags. Is this a good way to do it? Also how do I retrieve the runs part in the immediate next row?

<!-- <a href="javascript:void(0);" onClick="return showHwkTooltip(this, 'lvpyrbat1');" class="livePlayerCurrent">*Luke Woodcock</a>-->

<a href="/icc_cricket_worldcup2011/content/current/player/38920.html" target="_blank" class="livePlayerCurrent" title="view the player profile for Ross Taylor">
*Ross Taylor
</a>    <span style="margin-left:5px;" title="left-hand bat">(lhb)</span >

   </td >
   <td><b>9</b></td>
   <td>9</td>
   <td>1</td>
   <td>0</td>
   <td>100.00</td>
   <td></td>
   <td colspan="3" align="left"><span class="batStyl">striker</style></td>
   <td></td>
   <td colspan="8"></td>
  </tr>

Please let me know if you need more info.

Regards, Sam

Use a parser. Even for two pieces of information. Don't fall into the regex rabbithole for parsing HTML. — CanSpice, Feb 16 '11 at 18:43
@CanSpice Also could you please suggest an HTML/XML parser? How would it be different than using REGEX for the above example? — sammydude, Feb 16 '11 at 20:01

score 9 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:27

9

What's the best way to do parse this info?

Use an HTML parser.

Don't want to use an HTML parser.

I disagree.

Is REGEX the best way

No.

edited May 23 '17 at 10:27

Community

1
1

answered Feb 16 '11 at 18:52

CommonsWare

986,068
189
2,389
2,491

Could you please suggest an HTML/XML parser? How would it be different than using REGEX for the above example? – sammydude Feb 16 '11 at 20:00
@sammydude: http://java-source.net/open-source/html-parsers is the third link in a Google search for `java html parser`. – CommonsWare Feb 16 '11 at 20:10
Agree with the answers provided by CommonsWare. Since I had a very minor requirement, went ahead with REGEX. – sammydude Mar 07 '11 at 05:19

Johan Sjöberg · Answer 2 · 2011-02-16T18:51:28.273

1

Please consider using the proper tool for the job, e.g., a html/xml parser not regex.

If you really want to do it using regex you can try the following out:

Extract score

  (?<=\\<b\\>)\\d+(?=\\</b\\>)

Extract player name

  (?<=\\>)[^\\<]+(?=\\</a\\>)

The second regex assumed you sanitized the xml by removing the anchortag between comment tags.

 <!-- ... -->

What it does it extract the value within any anchortag. This is one of the fundamental restrictions when using regex, it isn't context-aware.

edited Feb 16 '11 at 18:51

answered Feb 16 '11 at 18:40

Johan Sjöberg

47,929
21
130
148

@johan-sjoberg Thanks for your response! I just pasted a part of the HTML file. There are many more occurrences of rows similar to the one showing runs. So, the above regex string wouldn't work out right? Also my hook for getting the batsman's name is 'livePlayerCurrent' as there are many other anchor tags present in the file. Could you please give the previous 'livePlayerCurrent' regex string which you updated before the current update? :-) – sammydude Feb 16 '11 at 19:57
@johan-sjoberg For the runs scored I would like to fetch the row just after the batsman tag. Is it possible? – sammydude Feb 16 '11 at 19:59
@johan-sjoberg Also could you please suggest an HTML/XML parser? How would it be different than using REGEX for the above example? – sammydude Feb 16 '11 at 20:00
I would recommend [nekohtml](http://nekohtml.sourceforge.net/), or alternatively [htmlparser](http://htmlparser.sourceforge.net/) although it's API is quite different. If you html is well-formed, you could get away with java's own [sax parser](http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/javax/xml/parsers/SAXParser.html). These will save you alot of trouble over covering all special cases with regex. – Johan Sjöberg Feb 16 '11 at 20:35
@johan-sjober Thanks Johan. Looks like nekohtml has some setup issues with Android. Will check it out. Saxparser is more akin to parsing XML it seems. Hard pressed for time, so trying out REGEX too. Is it possible to use the 'livePlayerCurrent' tag to zero in on the REGEX pattern? Any pattern to retrieve the row after 'livePlayerCurrent' anchor tag? Sorry about the repeated bugging. :-) – sammydude Feb 16 '11 at 21:07
xhtml - xml, it's the same thing basically. You can use `livePlayerCurrent`, but since it doesn't always seem to appear directly *next* to name it cannot be used. Regex are more powerful when combined with regular java string processing. E.g., use `string.substring` and similar tools to aid the regex in doing its job. E.g., if `line.contains("livePlayerCurrent")` and so on. – Johan Sjöberg Feb 16 '11 at 21:51

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 22 '12 at 07:15

0

For what it is worth, you can also have a look at Jsoup. I used it in my projects,and it handles malformed html very well. I believe that might be the only reason I'm using it ;)

Regards, EZFrag

answered Mar 22 '12 at 07:15

EZFrag

317
12
29

Android : Parse HTML block of code

3 Answers3

Linked