How to Parse HTML

http://blog.objectgraph.com/index.php/2010/02/24/parsing-html-iphone-development/

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[iPhone Development] How to Parse HTML
On 02.24.10, In code, iphone development, by kiichi

A few weeks ago, I was looking for a simple parser for html in iPhone because I just need to scrape a couple of webpages to get the contents. I found a nice wrapper on this posting, and it’s called hpple. Simple steps to use the library.

Include and Link libxml2

•    1. Expand Targets
•    2. Double Click on your project name
•    3. Select All Configuration
•    4. Search for Header Search Path
•    5. Add this line below with recursive option
•       ${SDKROOT}/usr/include/libxml2
•    6. Search for Other Linker Flag
•    7. Add this line below
•       -lxml2

See screenshots below

html_include



html_linking





Download Source Codes

git clone git://github.com/topfunky/hpple.git

Then drag and drop following source codes

• TFHpple.h
• TFHpple.m
• TFHppleElement.h
• TFHppleElement.m
• XPathQuery.h
• XPathQuery.m

That’s it. Let’s write some codes.

// Don't forget
 // #import "TFHpple.h"
 NSData *htmlData = [[NSString stringWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL URLWithString: @"http://www.objectgraph.com/contact.html"]] dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
 TFHpple *xpathParser = [[TFHpple alloc] initWithHTMLData:htmlData];
 NSArray *elements  = [xpathParser search:@"//h3"]; // get the page title - this is xpath notation
 TFHppleElement *element = [elements objectAtIndex:0];
 NSString *myTitle = [element content];
 NSLog(myTitle);
 [xpathParser release];
 [htmlData release];

XCode Project Download

Donwnload the complete project file is available here.