How can I select from only one table with Web::Scraper?

Question

I want to extract the text only for heading Node Object Methods from a webpage. The specific HMTL part is as follows:

<h2>Node Object Properties</h2>
<p>The &quot;DOM&quot; column indicates in which DOM Level the property was introduced.</p>

<table class="reference">
<tr>
<th width="23%" align="left">Property</th>
<th width="71%" align="left">Description</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">DOM</th>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="prop_node_attributes.asp">attributes</a></td>
    <td>Returns a collection of a node's attributes</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">1</td>
</tr>

<tr>
    <td><a href="prop_node_baseuri.asp">baseURI</a></td>
    <td>Returns the absolute base URI of a node</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="prop_node_childnodes.asp">childNodes</a></td>
    <td>Returns a NodeList of child nodes for a node</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="prop_node_firstchild.asp">firstChild</a></td>
    <td>Returns the first child of a node</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="prop_node_lastchild.asp">lastChild</a></td>
    <td>Returns the last child of a node</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="prop_node_localname.asp">localName</a></td>
    <td>Returns the local part of the name of a node</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="prop_node_namespaceuri.asp">namespaceURI</a></td>
    <td>Returns the namespace URI of a node</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="prop_node_nextsibling.asp">nextSibling</a></td>
    <td>Returns the next node at the same node tree level</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="prop_node_nodename.asp">nodeName</a></td>
    <td>Returns the name of a node, depending on its type</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="prop_node_nodetype.asp">nodeType</a></td>
    <td>Returns the type of a node</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="prop_node_nodevalue.asp">nodeValue</a></td>
    <td>Sets or returns the value of a node, depending on its 
    type</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="prop_node_ownerdocument.asp">ownerDocument</a></td>
    <td>Returns the root element (document object) for a node</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="prop_node_parentnode.asp">parentNode</a></td>
    <td>Returns the parent node of a node</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="prop_node_prefix.asp">prefix</a></td>
    <td>Sets or returns the namespace prefix of a node</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="prop_node_previoussibling.asp">previousSibling</a></td>
    <td>Returns the previous node at the same node tree level</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="prop_node_textcontent.asp">textContent</a></td>
    <td>Sets or returns the textual content of a node and its 
    descendants</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">3</td>
</tr>
</table>

<h2>Node Object Methods</h2>
<p>The &quot;DOM&quot; column indicates in which DOM Level the method was introduced.</p>
<table class="reference">
<tr>
<th width="33%" align="left">Method</th>
<th width="61%" align="left">Description</th>
<th style="text-align:center;">DOM</th>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="met_node_appendchild.asp">appendChild()</a></td>
    <td>Adds a new child node, to the specified node, as the last child node</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">1 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="met_node_clonenode.asp">cloneNode()</a></td>
    <td>Clones a node</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">1 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="met_node_comparedocumentposition.asp">compareDocumentPosition()</a></td>
    <td>Compares the document position of two nodes</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">1 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td>getFeature(<span class="parameter">feature</span>,<span class="parameter">version</span>)</td>
    <td>Returns a DOM object which implements the specialized APIs 
    of the specified feature and version</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">3 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td>getUserData(<span class="parameter">key</span>)</td>
    <td>Returns the object associated to a key on a this node. The 
    object must first have been set to this node by calling setUserData with the 
    same key</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">3 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="met_node_hasattributes.asp">hasAttributes()</a></td>
    <td>Returns true if a node has any attributes, otherwise it 
    returns false</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">2 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="met_node_haschildnodes.asp">hasChildNodes()</a></td>
    <td>Returns true if a node has any child nodes, otherwise it 
    returns false</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">1 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td><a href="met_node_insertbefore.asp">insertBefore()</a></td>
    <td>Inserts a new child node before a specified, existing, child node</td>
    <td style="text-align:center;">1 </td>
</tr>
</table>

In Perl if I write the following:

 my $data = scraper {
 process "table.reference > tr > td > a", 'renners[]' => 'TEXT';
}

for my $i (0 .. $#{$res2->{renners}}) {
  print $res2->{renners}[$i];
print "\n";
}

I get the text for all the tags i.e.:

attributes
baseURI
.
.
.
.
insertBefore()

wheras I need the text of tag <a> only for Node Object Methods i.e.:

appendChild()
.
.
.
insertBefore()

In short I want to print the NODE object methods only. What should I modify in the code?

Answer 1

You can use XPath to extract data from the very next table after the heading Node Object Methods, like so

use Web::Scraper;

my $html = do { local $/; <DATA> };

my $methods = scraper {
    process '//h2[.="Node Object Methods"]/following-sibling::table[1]//tr/td[1]', 
        'renners[]' => 'TEXT';
};  
my $res = $methods->scrape( $html );

say join "\n", @{ $res->{renners} };

The output will be

appendChild()
cloneNode()
compareDocumentPosition()
getFeature(feature,version)
getUserData(key)
hasAttributes()
hasChildNodes()
insertBefore()

Answer 2

Web::Query provides an almost identical solution to the Mojo::DOM solution proposed by brian d foy.

use Web::Query;

my $html = do { local $/; <DATA> };

wq($html)
    ->find('table.reference:nth-of-type(2) > tr > td > a')
    ->each(sub {
        my ($i, $e) = @_;
        say $e->text();
    });

However it looks like Mojo::DOM is the more robust library. For Web::Query to correctly match with its selector I had to edit the input provided in the question to add a root node surrounding all the other content.

__DATA__
<html>
...
</html>

Answer 3

Web::Scraper can use nth_of_type to choose the right table. There are two tables with the same class, so you can say table.reference:nth-of-type(2):

use v5.22;

use feature qw(postderef);
no warnings qw(experimental::postderef);


use Web::Scraper;

my $html = do { local $/; <DATA> };

my $methods = scraper {
    process "table.reference:nth-of-type(2) > tr > td > a", 'renners[]' => 'TEXT';
    };
my $res = $methods->scrape( $html );

say join "\n", $res->{renners}->@*;

And here's a Mojo::DOM:

use Mojo::DOM;

my $html = do { local $/; <DATA> };

my $dom = Mojo::DOM->new( $html );

say $dom
    ->find( 'table.reference:nth-of-type(2) > tr > td > a' )
    ->map( 'text' )
    ->join( "\n" );

I tried looking for a selector solution that could recognize the text in the h2, but my kung fu is weak here.