# Hpricot getting a table **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [April 18, 2007, 5:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/hpricot-getting-a-table/92357 "2007-04-18T17:45:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 5:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/hpricot-getting-a-table/92357/1 "2007-04-18T17:45:27Z")
I am currently trying to scrape some data from the following web page I am using some hpricot code that looks like this @doc = Hpricot(open(strLink)) @doc.search("/html/body/table[5]/tr/td[2]/div[3]/table/tr/td/div[1]/ table") do |data| puts data end At this point data contains html that looks like this | Stuff | | Stuff | | Stuff | | Stuff | | Stuff | | Stuff | | Stuff | | Stuff | More stuff continues … I want capture each of these four tables individually for further processing. I have tried a variety of methods but nothing seems to work. Thanks, Luis ---
**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 6:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/hpricot-getting-a-table/92357/2 "2007-04-18T18:15:35Z")
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote: > processing. I have tried a variety of methods but nothing seems to > work. Would something as simple as this work? I’m not sure how complex your tables get. #!/usr/bin/env ruby require “hpricot” doc = Hpricot(" | Stuff | | Stuff | | Stuff | | Stuff | | Stuff | | Stuff | | Stuff | | Stuff | ") (doc/“table”).map {|t| puts t.to\_html} This outputs: “ | Stuff | | Stuff | ” “ | Stuff | | Stuff | ” “ | Stuff | | Stuff | ” “ | Stuff | | Stuff | ” Note that there’s an Hpricot mailing list at [http://code.whytheluckystiff.net/hpricot/](http://code.whytheluckystiff.net/hpricot/) that might be a more appropriate forum for these questions. -Drew ---
**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 8:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/hpricot-getting-a-table/92357/3 "2007-04-18T20:55:51Z")
On Apr 18, 11:11 am, Drew R. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > I want capture each of these four tables individually for further > > doc = Hpricot(" > > > > | Stuff | > > | Stuff | > > > > > > “ > > > > | Stuff | > > | Stuff | > > > > ” > > “ > > > > | Stuff | > > | Stuff | > > > > ” > > Note that there’s an Hpricot mailing list athttp://code.whytheluckystiff.net/hpricot/that might be a more > appropriate forum for these questions. > > -Drew Thanks, This gets me a lot closer to what I need. I’m having some problems with syntax. If I’m reading the docs correctly map returns an array. So I should be able to do something like arrTables = (doc/“tables”).map And then access each table individually. For example arrTables[0] Luis ---
**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 9:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/hpricot-getting-a-table/92357/4 "2007-04-18T21:29:54Z")
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote: > At this point data contains html that looks like this > work. > What are you trying to do exactly? What should be the result? > Could you please provide some real data, because these ‘stuff’ do not > make too much sense 🙂 Thanks, Peter \_\_ [http://www.rubyrailways.com](http://www.rubyrailways.com) :: Ruby and Web2.0 blog [http://scrubyt.org](http://scrubyt.org) :: Ruby web scraping framework [http://rubykitchensink.ca/](http://rubykitchensink.ca/) :: The indexed archive of all things Ruby ---
**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 10:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/hpricot-getting-a-table/92357/5 "2007-04-18T22:00:58Z")
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote: > This gets me a lot closer to what I need. > I’m having some problems with syntax. If I’m reading the docs > correctly map returns an array. So I should be able to do something > like > > arrTables = (doc/“tables”).map > > And then access each table individually. For example > > arrTables[0] Array#map wasn’t particularly relevant in my example; I just used it to iterate #puts over the result of (doc/“table”). The real lesson to glean from my response is that: (doc/“table”) is much nicer than: doc.search(“/html/body/table[5]/tr/td[2]/div[3]/table/tr/td/div[1]/table”) …which, like Peter alluded to, is fairly meaningless to us because we don’t know what the full original HTML looks like. You can grab the s from the snippet you provided with just a CSS-style search[1]. FWIW, if you have any control over the markup, you can simply add some unique classes to the tables you want: ... ... ... Then do: (doc/“table.foo”) That’ll work regardless of how many s are on the page. -Drew Footnotes: [1] [http://lnk.nu/code.whytheluckystiff.net/e7m](http://lnk.nu/code.whytheluckystiff.net/e7m)