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HTML::HeadParser

NAME

HTML::HeadParser - Parse <HEAD> section of a HTML document

SYNOPSIS

 require HTML::HeadParser;
 $p = HTML::HeadParser->new;
 $p->parse($text) and  print "not finished";
 $p->header('Title')          # to access <title>....</title>
 $p->header('Content-Base')   # to access <base href="http://...">
 $p->header('Foo')            # to access <meta http-equiv="Foo" content="...">

DESCRIPTION

The HTML::HeadParser is a specialized (and lightweight) HTML::Parser that will only parse the <HEAD>...</HEAD> section of an HTML document. The parse() method will return a FALSE value as soon as some <BODY> element or body text are found, and should not be called again after this.

Note that the HTML::HeadParser might get confused if raw undecoded UTF-8 is passed to the parse() method. Make sure the strings are properly decoded before passing them on.

The HTML::HeadParser keeps a reference to a header object, and the parser will update this header object as the various elements of the <HEAD> section of the HTML document are recognized. The following header fields are affected:

Content-Base:

The Content-Base header is initialized from the <base href=``...''> element.

Title:

The Title header is initialized from the <title>...</title> element.

Isindex:

The Isindex header will be added if there is a <isindex> element in the <head>. The header value is initialized from the prompt attribute if it is present. If no prompt attribute is given it will have '?' as the value.

X-Meta-Foo:

All <meta> elements will initialize headers with the prefix ``X-Meta-'' on the name. If the <meta> element contains a http-equiv attribute, then it will be honored as the header name.

METHODS

The following methods (in addition to those provided by the superclass) are available:

$hp = HTML::HeadParser->new
$hp = HTML::HeadParser->new( $header )

The object constructor. The optional $header argument should be a reference to an object that implement the header() and push_header() methods as defined by the HTTP::Headers class. Normally it will be of some class that isa or delegates to the HTTP::Headers class.

If no $header is given HTML::HeadParser will create an HTTP::Header object by itself (initially empty).

$hp->header;

Returns a reference to the header object.

$hp->header( $key )

Returns a header value. It is just a shorter way to write $hp->header->header($key).

EXAMPLE

 $h = HTTP::Headers->new;
 $p = HTML::HeadParser->new($h);
 $p->parse(<<EOT);
 <title>Stupid example</title>
 <base href="http://www.linpro.no/lwp/">
 Normal text starts here.
 EOT
 undef $p;
 print $h->title;   # should print "Stupid example"

SEE ALSO

the HTML::Parser manpage, the HTTP::Headers manpage

The HTTP::Headers class is distributed as part of the libwww-perl package. If you don't have that distribution installed you need to provide the $header argument to the HTML::HeadParser constructor with your own object that implements the documented protocol.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 1996-2001 Gisle Aas. All rights reserved.

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.