html parser c,cpython/html.parser.rst at main · python/cpython · GitHub

: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

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.

Create a parser instance able to parse invalid markup.

If convert_charrefs is True (the default), all character

references (except the ones in script/style elements) are

automatically converted to the corresponding Unicode characters.

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:: 3.4

*convert_charrefs* keyword argument added.

.. versionchanged:: 3.5

The default value for argument *convert_charrefs* is now ``True``.

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` 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', 'https://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'``). This method is never called if *convert_charrefs* is

``True``.

.. method:: HTMLParser.handle_charref(name)

This method is called to process decimal and hexadecimal numeric character

references of the form ``NNN;`` and ``NNN;``. For example, the decimal

equivalent for ``>`` is ``>``, whereas the hexadecimal is ``>``;

in this case the method will receive ``'62'`` or ``'x3E'``. This method

is never called if *convert_charrefs* is ``True``.

.. 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]>IE9-specific content

.. method:: HTMLParser.handle_decl(decl)

This method is called to handle an HTML doctype declaration (e.g.

````).

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 ``<?proc color='red'>``, 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 does nothing.

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('http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">')

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('')

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('

... 'alert("hello!");')

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

Parsing named and numeric character references and converting them to the

correct char (note: these 3 references are all equivalent to '>'):

>>> 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

(unless convert_charrefs is set to True):

>>> 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