:mod:`html.parser` --- Simple HTML and XHTML parser =================================================== .. module:: html.parser :synopsis: A simple parser that can handle HTML and XHTML. .. index:: single: HTML single: XHTML **Source code:** :source:`Lib/html/parser.py` -------------- This module defines a class :class:`HTMLParser` which serves as the basis for parsing text files formatted in HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language) and XHTML. .. class:: HTMLParser(strict=False) Create a parser instance. If *strict* is ``False`` (the default), the parser will accept and parse invalid markup. If *strict* is ``True`` the parser will raise an :exc:`~html.parser.HTMLParseError` exception instead [#]_ when it's not able to parse the markup. The use of ``strict=True`` is discouraged and the *strict* argument is deprecated. An :class:`.HTMLParser` instance is fed HTML data and calls handler methods when start tags, end tags, text, comments, and other markup elements are encountered. The user should subclass :class:`.HTMLParser` and override its methods to implement the desired behavior. This parser does not check that end tags match start tags or call the end-tag handler for elements which are closed implicitly by closing an outer element. .. versionchanged:: 3.2 *strict* keyword added. .. deprecated-removed:: 3.3 3.5 The *strict* argument and the strict mode have been deprecated. The parser is now able to accept and parse invalid markup too. An exception is defined as well: .. exception:: HTMLParseError Exception raised by the :class:`HTMLParser` class when it encounters an error while parsing and *strict* is ``True``. This exception provides three attributes: :attr:`msg` is a brief message explaining the error, :attr:`lineno` is the number of the line on which the broken construct was detected, and :attr:`offset` is the number of characters into the line at which the construct starts. .. deprecated-removed:: 3.3 3.5 This exception has been deprecated because it's never raised by the parser (when the default non-strict mode is used). Example HTML Parser Application ------------------------------- As a basic example, below is a simple HTML parser that uses the :class:`HTMLParser` class to print out start tags, end tags, and data as they are encountered:: from html.parser import HTMLParser class MyHTMLParser(HTMLParser): def handle_starttag(self, tag, attrs): print("Encountered a start tag:", tag) def handle_endtag(self, tag): print("Encountered an end tag :", tag) def handle_data(self, data): print("Encountered some data :", data) parser = MyHTMLParser() parser.feed('Test' '

Parse me!

') The output will then be:: Encountered a start tag: html Encountered a start tag: head Encountered a start tag: title Encountered some data : Test Encountered an end tag : title Encountered an end tag : head Encountered a start tag: body Encountered a start tag: h1 Encountered some data : Parse me! Encountered an end tag : h1 Encountered an end tag : body Encountered an end tag : html :class:`.HTMLParser` Methods ---------------------------- :class:`HTMLParser` instances have the following methods: .. method:: HTMLParser.feed(data) Feed some text to the parser. It is processed insofar as it consists of complete elements; incomplete data is buffered until more data is fed or :meth:`close` is called. *data* must be :class:`str`. .. method:: HTMLParser.close() Force processing of all buffered data as if it were followed by an end-of-file mark. This method may be redefined by a derived class to define additional processing at the end of the input, but the redefined version should always call the :class:`HTMLParser` base class method :meth:`close`. .. method:: HTMLParser.reset() Reset the instance. Loses all unprocessed data. This is called implicitly at instantiation time. .. method:: HTMLParser.getpos() Return current line number and offset. .. method:: HTMLParser.get_starttag_text() Return the text of the most recently opened start tag. This should not normally be needed for structured processing, but may be useful in dealing with HTML "as deployed" or for re-generating input with minimal changes (whitespace between attributes can be preserved, etc.). The following methods are called when data or markup elements are encountered and they are meant to be overridden in a subclass. The base class implementations do nothing (except for :meth:`~HTMLParser.handle_startendtag`): .. method:: HTMLParser.handle_starttag(tag, attrs) This method is called to handle the start of a tag (e.g. ``
``). The *tag* argument is the name of the tag converted to lower case. The *attrs* argument is a list of ``(name, value)`` pairs containing the attributes found inside the tag's ``<>`` brackets. The *name* will be translated to lower case, and quotes in the *value* have been removed, and character and entity references have been replaced. For instance, for the tag ````, this method would be called as ``handle_starttag('a', [('href', 'http://www.cwi.nl/')])``. All entity references from :mod:`html.entities` are replaced in the attribute values. .. method:: HTMLParser.handle_endtag(tag) This method is called to handle the end tag of an element (e.g. ``
``). The *tag* argument is the name of the tag converted to lower case. .. method:: HTMLParser.handle_startendtag(tag, attrs) Similar to :meth:`handle_starttag`, but called when the parser encounters an XHTML-style empty tag (````). This method may be overridden by subclasses which require this particular lexical information; the default implementation simply calls :meth:`handle_starttag` and :meth:`handle_endtag`. .. method:: HTMLParser.handle_data(data) This method is called to process arbitrary data (e.g. text nodes and the content of ```` and ````). .. method:: HTMLParser.handle_entityref(name) This method is called to process a named character reference of the form ``&name;`` (e.g. ``>``), where *name* is a general entity reference (e.g. ``'gt'``). .. method:: HTMLParser.handle_charref(name) This method is called to process decimal and hexadecimal numeric character references of the form ``&#NNN;`` and ``&#xNNN;``. For example, the decimal equivalent for ``>`` is ``>``, whereas the hexadecimal is ``>``; in this case the method will receive ``'62'`` or ``'x3E'``. .. method:: HTMLParser.handle_comment(data) This method is called when a comment is encountered (e.g. ````). For example, the comment ```` will cause this method to be called with the argument ``' comment '``. The content of Internet Explorer conditional comments (condcoms) will also be sent to this method, so, for ````, this method will receive ``'[if IE 9]>IE-specific content``). The *decl* parameter will be the entire contents of the declaration inside the ```` markup (e.g. ``'DOCTYPE html'``). .. method:: HTMLParser.handle_pi(data) Method called when a processing instruction is encountered. The *data* parameter will contain the entire processing instruction. For example, for the processing instruction ````, this method would be called as ``handle_pi("proc color='red'")``. It is intended to be overridden by a derived class; the base class implementation does nothing. .. note:: The :class:`HTMLParser` class uses the SGML syntactic rules for processing instructions. An XHTML processing instruction using the trailing ``'?'`` will cause the ``'?'`` to be included in *data*. .. method:: HTMLParser.unknown_decl(data) This method is called when an unrecognized declaration is read by the parser. The *data* parameter will be the entire contents of the declaration inside the ```` markup. It is sometimes useful to be overridden by a derived class. The base class implementation raises an :exc:`HTMLParseError` when *strict* is ``True``. .. _htmlparser-examples: Examples -------- The following class implements a parser that will be used to illustrate more examples:: from html.parser import HTMLParser from html.entities import name2codepoint class MyHTMLParser(HTMLParser): def handle_starttag(self, tag, attrs): print("Start tag:", tag) for attr in attrs: print(" attr:", attr) def handle_endtag(self, tag): print("End tag :", tag) def handle_data(self, data): print("Data :", data) def handle_comment(self, data): print("Comment :", data) def handle_entityref(self, name): c = chr(name2codepoint[name]) print("Named ent:", c) def handle_charref(self, name): if name.startswith('x'): c = chr(int(name[1:], 16)) else: c = chr(int(name)) print("Num ent :", c) def handle_decl(self, data): print("Decl :", data) parser = MyHTMLParser() Parsing a doctype:: >>> parser.feed('') Decl : DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd" Parsing an element with a few attributes and a title:: >>> parser.feed('The Python logo') Start tag: img attr: ('src', 'python-logo.png') attr: ('alt', 'The Python logo') >>> >>> parser.feed('

Python

') Start tag: h1 Data : Python End tag : h1 The content of ``script`` and ``style`` elements is returned as is, without further parsing:: >>> parser.feed('') Start tag: style attr: ('type', 'text/css') Data : #python { color: green } End tag : style >>> >>> parser.feed('') Start tag: script attr: ('type', 'text/javascript') Data : alert("hello!"); End tag : script Parsing comments:: >>> parser.feed('' ... '') Comment : a comment Comment : [if IE 9]>IE-specific content'``):: >>> parser.feed('>>>') Named ent: > Num ent : > Num ent : > Feeding incomplete chunks to :meth:`~HTMLParser.feed` works, but :meth:`~HTMLParser.handle_data` might be called more than once:: >>> for chunk in ['buff', 'ered ', 'text']: ... parser.feed(chunk) ... Start tag: span Data : buff Data : ered Data : text End tag : span Parsing invalid HTML (e.g. unquoted attributes) also works:: >>> parser.feed('

tag soup

') Start tag: p Start tag: a attr: ('class', 'link') attr: ('href', '#main') Data : tag soup End tag : p End tag : a .. rubric:: Footnotes .. [#] For backward compatibility reasons *strict* mode does not raise exceptions for all non-compliant HTML. That is, some invalid HTML is tolerated even in *strict* mode.