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Library
Module
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include module type of Soup
HTML nodes. These come in three varieties: element node
represents a node that is known to be an element, soup node
represents an entire document, and general node
represents a node that might be anything, including an element, a document, or text. There is no phantom type specifically for text nodes.
Throughout Lambda Soup, if a function can operate on any kind of node, the argument is typed at 'a node
. If an element node or the entire document is required, the argument type is element node
or soup node
, respectively. general node
is the result of a function that can't guarantee that it evaluates to only elements or only documents.
Sequence of nodes. This is always instantiated as either element nodes
or or general nodes
. The sequence is lazy in the sense that only as many elements as needed are evaluated. This can be used with with_stop
to traverse part of a document until some condition is met.
select selector node
is all the descendants of node
matching CSS selector selector
. All CSS3 selectors are supported, except those which imply layout or a user interface:
:link, :visited, :hover, :active, :focus, :target, :lang, :enabled,
:disabled, :checked, :indeterminate, ::first-line, ::first-letter,
::selection, ::before, ::after
XML namespace selectors are not supported. Lambda Soup supports the canceled :contains("foo")
pseudo-class.
In regular CSS, a selector cannot start with a combinator such as >
. Lambda Soup allows selectors such as > p
, + p
, and ~ p
, which select immediate children of node
, adjacent next siblings, and all next siblings, respectively.
In addition, you can use the empty selector to select node
itself. In this case, note that if node
is not an element (for example, it is often the soup node), select
will result in nothing: select
always results in sequences of element nodes only.
CSS escape sequences are supported in identifiers.
Like select
, but evaluates to at most one element. Note that there is also R.select_one
if you don't want an optional result, which is explained at require
.
node $? selector
is the same as select_one selector node
.
node $ selector
is the same as select_one selector node |> require
.
module Infix : sig ... end
Open Soup.Infix
instead of Soup
to introduce only the infix operators $$
, $?
, and $
into your scope.
matches_select selector root node
checks if node
would match selector
in the root_node
document.
node
should be a child of the root_node
. If node
is a standalone element node created with create_element
or a child of some other root node, the result will always be false
.
module R : sig ... end
For each function Soup.f
that evaluates to an option, Soup.R.f
is a version of f
that is post-composed with require
, so, for example, you can write soup |> children |> R.first
instead of soup |> children |> first |> require
.
Used for early termination. See with_stop
below.
val with_stop : ('a stop -> 'a) -> 'a
with_stop (fun stop -> e)
behaves as e
. However, if the evaluation of e
calls stop.throw v
, the whole expression immediately evaluates to v
instead.
For example, here is an expression that finds the first node with a draggable
attribute, stopping traversal immediately when that occurs:
with_stop (fun stop ->
some_root_node
|> descendants
|> elements
|> iter (fun element ->
if has_attribute "draggable" element then
stop.throw (Some element));
None)
The element's tag name. For example, an <a>
element has tag name a
. All tag names are converted to lowercase.
attribute attr element
retrieves the value of attribute attr
from the given element.
The element's class list. For example, <a class="foo bar">
has class list ["foo"; "bar"]
.
has_attribute attr element
indicates whether element
has attribute attr
.
fold_attributes f init element
applies f
successively to the names and values of the attributes of element
. The first string
argument to f
is the attribute name, and the second is the value.
Given any node, asserts that it is an element e
. If so, evaluates to Some e
. Otherwise, evaluates to None
.
val texts : _ node -> string list
texts node
is the content of all text nodes that are descendants of node
. If node
is itself a text node, evaluates to node
's content.
val trimmed_texts : _ node -> string list
Same as texts
, but all strings are passed through String.trim
, and then all empty strings are filtered out.
val leaf_text : _ node -> string option
leaf_text node
retrieves the content of one text node in node
:
node
is a text node itself, with value s
, leaf_text node
evaluates to Some s
.node
is an element or soup node, then, leaf_text node
filters out all text children of node
containing only whitespace. If there is only one child child
remaining, it evaluates to leaf_text child
. If there are no children remaining, it evaluates to Some ""
. If there are two or more children remaining, it evaluates to None
.Here are some examples of what leaf_text
produces for various nodes:
some text => Some "some text"
<p>some text</p> => Some "some text"
<div><p>some text</p></div> => Some "some text"
<div> <p>some text</p></div> => Some "some text"
<div><p>some text</p><p>more</p></div> => None
<div></div> => Some ""
children node
is the sequence of all children of node
. If node
is a text node, the traversal is empty.
descendants node
is the sequence of all descendants of node
. node
is not considered to be its own descendant. If node
is a text node, the traversal is empty.
ancestors node
is the sequence of all ancestors of node
. node
is not considered to be its own ancestor. The soup node is not included. Ancestors are ordered by proximity to node
, i.e. the sequence goes up the DOM tree to a root element.
siblings node
is the sequence of all siblings of node
. node
is not considered to be its own sibling. The siblings are ordered as they appear in the child list of node
's parent.
Like siblings
, but only those siblings which follow node
in its parent's child list.
Like siblings
, but only those siblings which precede node
in its parent's child list, and ordered by proximity to node
, i.e. the reverse order of appearance in node
's parent's child list.
fold f init s
folds f
over the nodes of s
, i.e. if s
is n, n', n'', ...
, evaluates f (f (f init n) n') n'' ...
.
filter f s
is the sequence consisting of the nodes n
of s
for which f n
evaluates to true
.
map f s
is the sequence consisting of nodes f n
for each node n
of s
.
filter_map f s
is the sequence consisting of nodes n'
for each node n
of s
for which f n
evaluates to Some n'
. Nodes for which f n
evaluates to None
are dropped.
flatten f s
is the sequence consisting of the concatenation of all the sequences f n
for each n
in s
.
Reverses the given node sequence. Note that this forces traversal of the sequence.
nth n s
evaluates to the n
th member of s
, if it is present. The index is 1-based. This is for consistency with the CSS :nth-child
selectors.
val count : 'a nodes -> int
Evaluates the entire given sequence and then returns the number of nodes.
val index_of : _ node -> int
Evaluates to the index of the given node in its parent's child list. If the node has no parent, the index is 1. The index is 1-based, according to CSS convention.
Evaluates to the element index of the given element in the parent's child list. That is, the index of the given element when the parent's non-element children are disregarded. The index is 1-based, according to CSS convention.
Evaluates to all descendant elements of the given node that have the given tag name. For example, some_root_node |> tags "a"
is a sequence of all a
elements under some_root_node
. It is equivalent to
some_root_node
|> descendants |> elements |> filter (fun e -> name e = "a")
and
some_root_node $$ "a"
Tag names are case-insensitive.
Like tags
, but evaluates to only the first element.
Given a node, evaluates to its parent element, if it has one. Note that root nodes do not have a parent element, as their parent is the soup node. Equivalent to n |> ancestors |> first
.
val is_root : _ node -> bool
Indicates whether the given node is not a soup node, and either has no parent, or its parent is a soup node.
val is_document : _ node -> bool
Indicates whether the given node is a soup (document) node.
val is_element : _ node -> bool
Indicates whether the given node is an element.
val is_text : _ node -> bool
Indicates whether the given node is a text node.
child node
evaluates to node
's first child. Equivalent to node |> children |> first
.
child_element node
evaluates to node
's first child element. Equivalent to node |> children |> elements |> first
.
next_sibling node
is the next sibling of node
in node
's parent's child list. Equivalent to node |> next_siblings |> first
.
Like next_sibling
, but for the preceding sibling instead.
next_element node
is the next sibling of node
that is an element. Equivalent to n |> next_siblings |> elements |> first
.
Like next_element
, but for the preceding siblings instead.
val no_children : _ node -> bool
Indicates whether the given node has no child nodes.
val at_most_one_child : _ node -> bool
Indicates whether the given node has at most one child node.
val to_string : _ node -> string
Converts the node tree rooted at the given node to an HTML5 string, preserving whitespace nodes.
val pretty_print : _ node -> string
Converts the node tree rooted at the given node to an HTML5 string formatted for easy reading by humans, difference algorthims, etc.
Note that this can change the whitespace structure of the HTML, so it may display differently in a browser than the original parsed document.
Lambda Soup uses Markup.ml internally to parse and write markup. If you wish to:
then you should use the functions below instead of parse
and to_string
.
See the Markup.ml documentation for a description of the types involved. The Markup.ml overview may be a good place to start.
val signals : _ node -> (Markup.signal, Markup.sync) Markup.stream
Converts the node tree rooted at the given node to a stream of Markup.ml signals. This underlies to_string
and pretty_print
.
For example, you can use this function together with Markup.write_xml
to output XML, instead of HTML:
soup |> signals |> Markup.write_xml |> Markup.to_string
val from_signals : (Markup.signal, Markup.sync) Markup.stream -> soup node
Converts a stream of Markup.ml signals to a Lambda Soup document. This underlies parse
.
For example, you can use this function together with Markup.parse_xml
to load XML into Lambda Soup:
Markup.string s |> Markup.parse_xml |> Markup.signals |> from_signals
Namespaces are ignored at the moment.
equal n n'
recursively tests the node trees rooted at n
and n'
for equality. To test true
, the trees must be identical, including whitespace text nodes. Class attributes and other multi-valued attributes are compared literally: classes must be listed in the same order, with the same amount of whitespace in the attribute value. For the purposes of comparison, adjacent text nodes are merged, and empty text nodes are ignored: this is the standard HTML normalization procedure.
equal_modulo_whitespace n n'
is like equal n n'
, but all text nodes have their values passed through String.trim
. Text nodes that become empty are then ignored for the purpose of comparison, as in equal
.
val create_element :
?id:string ->
?class_:string ->
?classes:string list ->
?attributes:(string * string) list ->
?inner_text:string ->
string ->
element node
create_element tag
creates a new element with the name tag
.
If ~attributes
is specified, the given attributes are added to the element. ~attributes
defaults to []
.
If ~classes
is specified, the class names are concatenated into a single string s
and the class
attribute is set on the element to the resulting value. This takes precedence over ~attributes
.
If ~class
is specified, the class is set on the element. This takes precedence over both ~attributes
and ~classes
.
If ~id
is specified, the id is set. This takes precedence over ~attributes
.
If ~inner_text
is specified, a text node is created with the given string, and made the single child of the new element.
append_child element node
adds node
to the end of the child list of element
.
prepend_child element node
adds node
to the beginning of the child list of element
.
insert_at_index k element node
makes node
the k
th child of element
. Note that the index is 1-based. If k
is outside the range of current valid indices, node
is inserted at the beginning or end of element
's child list.
insert_before node node'
inserts node'
immediately before node
in node
's parent's child list.
insert_after node node'
inserts node'
immediately after node
in node
's parent's child list.
val delete : _ node -> unit
Deletes the given node by unlinking it from its parent. If the node has descendants, they are implicitly deleted by this operation as well, in the sense that they become unreachable from the parent.
val clear : _ node -> unit
Unlinks all children of the given node.
replace target other
mutably replaces target
with other
. target
and other
are both deleted from their respective document trees. Then, other
is inserted where target
used to be in its document tree.
Note that you cannot replace multiple targets with other
: replace
will work as expected for the first target, but for the second target, it will remove other
from where the first target was, and insert it where the second target is. To replace multiple targets, you need multiple copies of other
.
swap element element'
replaces element
with element'
in element
's parent's child list. All children of element
are transferred to element'
, and all original children of element'
are transferred to element
.
wrap node element
inserts element
in the place of node
, and then makes node
element
's child. All original children of element
are unlinked.
val unwrap : _ node -> unit
unwrap node
unlinks node
, and inserts all of node
's children as children of node
's parent at the former location of node
.
append_root soup node
adds node
as the last root node of soup
.
prepend_root soup node
adds node
as the first root node of soup
.
set_attribute attr value element
sets the value of attribute attr
on element
to value
. If the attribute is not present, it is added to element
. If it is already present, the value is replaced.
Removes the given attribute from the given element. If the attribute is not present, has no effect.
add_class c element
adds class c
to element
, if element
does not already have class c
.
remove_class c element
removes class c
from element
, if element
has class c
.
Lambda Soup is not an I/O library. However, it provides a few simple helpers based on standard I/O functions in Pervasives
. These should not be used for "serious" code. They are only for when you need to get something done quickly, and/or don't care about corner cases, concurrency, or excellent reliability. In such cases, they allow you to avoid writing I/O wrappers or using additional libraries.
Using these, you can write little command-line scrapers and filters:
let () =
let soup = read_channel stdin |> parse in
let () = (* ...do things to soup... *) in
soup |> to_string |> write_channel stdout
If the above is compiled to a file scrape
, you can then run
curl -L "http://location.com" | ./scrape
Reads the entire contents of the file with the given path. Raises Sys_error
on failure.
val read_channel : in_channel -> string
Reads all bytes from the given channel.
write_file path data
writes data
to the file given by path
. If the file already exists, it is truncated (erased). If you want to append to file, use open_out_gen
with the necessary flags, and pass the resulting channel to write_channel
. Raises Sys_error
on failure.
val write_channel : out_channel -> string -> unit
Writes the given data to the given channel.