# Nokogiri bug or intended effect?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nokogiri-bug-or-intended-effect/188005>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [May 4, 2010, 12:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nokogiri-bug-or-intended-effect/188005 "2010-05-04T00:44:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/54ee81/32.png) [@nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nuby2ruby)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 12:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nokogiri-bug-or-intended-effect/188005/1 "2010-05-04T00:44:19Z")

</div>

I’m trying to parse this (poorly formatted) page, and when I look at the  
page I see:

Name: ZITO, PEDRO OSVALDO

When I look at the source I get:

**Name:** ZITO, PEDRO OSVALDO 

When I parse the page I get:

> > page.search("/html/body/table[3]/tr[1]/td[4]/table/tr[1]/td[1]/table/tr[3]/td[2]/table/tr[1]/td[1]/table/tr[2]/td[1]").first  
> > =\> #\<Nokogiri::XML::Element:0x1eb1f76 name=“td”  
> > attributes=[#\<Nokogiri::XML::Attr:0x1eb1eea name=“colspan” value=“4”\>]  
> > children=[#\<Nokogiri::XML::Element:0x1eb0d24 name=“font”  
> > attributes=[#\<Nokogiri::XML::Attr:0x1eb0c7a name=“face” value=“Arial”\>,  
> > #\<Nokogiri::XML::Attr:0x1eb0c70 name=“size” value=“2”\>]  
> > children=[#\<Nokogiri::XML::Text:0x1eb0694 "  
> > \r\n "\>, #\<Nokogiri::XML::Element:0x1eb066c name=“b”  
> > children=[#\<Nokogiri::XML::Text:0x1eb0496 "Name: "\>]\>,  
> > #\<Nokogiri::XML::Text:0x1eb03c4 "ZITO,PEDROOSVALDO  
> > "\>]\>, #\<Nokogiri::XML::Text:0x1eaf636 " \r\n  
> > \r\n "\>]\>
> 
> >

If you notice in the #\<Nokogiri::XML::Text:0x1eb03c4 "ZITO,PEDROOSVALDO  
"\> All the spaces in the name have been removed.

Here’s what I’m using:

> > Nokogiri::LIBXML\_VERSION  
> > =\> “2.7.3”  
> > macbook-pro:~ jeremywoertink$ ruby -v  
> > ruby 1.8.6 (2009-06-08 patchlevel 369) [universal-darwin9.0]

Anyone have any ideas? My guess is maybe an encoding issue??? There are  
other areas in the pages where I have to do string.gsub("\302\240", “”).

> > page.meta\_encoding  
> > =\> nil
> 
> >

Thanks,

~Jeremy

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/54ee81/32.png) [@nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nuby2ruby)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 4:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nokogiri-bug-or-intended-effect/188005/2 "2010-05-04T04:06:47Z")

</div>

Try using the .content() or .text() methods to get the text content of  
the nodes.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/54ee81/32.png) [@nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nuby2ruby)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 10:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nokogiri-bug-or-intended-effect/188005/3 "2010-05-04T22:13:57Z")

</div>

G\_ F\_ wrote:

> Try using the .content() or .text() methods to get the text content of  
> the nodes.

Yeah, I tried that. It just returns the name all squished. Any other  
ideas?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/54ee81/32.png) [@nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nuby2ruby)\
**Post date:** [May 5, 2010, 5:21am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nokogiri-bug-or-intended-effect/188005/4 "2010-05-05T05:21:06Z")

</div>

If you post this question to nokogiri-talk with a reproducible test  
case, I  
think you’ll quickly get a response from the helpful nokogiri community.

On May 3, 2010 6:45 PM, “Jeremy W.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
wrote:

I’m trying to parse this (poorly formatted) page, and when I look at the  
page I see:

Name: ZITO, PEDRO OSVALDO

When I look at the source I get:

**Name:** ZITO, PEDRO OSVALDO 

When I parse the page I get:

> >

page.search(“/html/body/table[3]/tr[1]/td[4]/table/tr[1]/td[1]/table/tr[3]/td[2]/table/tr[1]/td[1]/table/tr[2]/td[1]”).first  
=\> #\<Nokogiri::XML::Element:0x1eb1f76 name=“td”  
attributes=[#\<Nokogiri::XML::Attr:0x1eb1eea name=“colspan” value=“4”\>]  
children=[#\<Nokogiri::XML::Element:0x1eb0d24 name=“font”  
attributes=[#\<Nokogiri::XML::Attr:0x1eb0c7a name=“face” value=“Arial”\>,  
#\<Nokogiri::XML::Attr:0x1eb0c70 name=“size” value=“2”\>]  
children=[#\<Nokogiri::XML::Text:0x1eb0694 "  
\r\n "\>, #\<Nokogiri::XML::Element:0x1eb066c name=“b”  
children=[#\<Nokogiri::XML::Text:0x1eb0496 "Name: "\>]\>,  
#\<Nokogiri::XML::Text:0x1eb03c4 "ZITO,PEDROOSVALDO  
"\>]\>, #\<Nokogiri::XML::Text:0x1eaf636 " \r\n  
\r\n "\>]\>

> >

If you notice in the #\<Nokogiri::XML::Text:0x1eb03c4 "ZITO,PEDROOSVALDO  
"\> All the spaces in the name have been removed.

Here’s what I’m using:

> > Nokogiri::LIBXML\_VERSION  
> > =\> “2.7.3”  
> > macbook-pro:~ jeremywoertink$ ruby -v  
> > ruby 1.8.6 (2009-06-08 patchlevel 369) [universal-darwin9.0]

Anyone have any ideas? My guess is maybe an encoding issue??? There are  
other areas in the pages where I have to do string.gsub(“\302\240”, “”).

> > page.meta\_encoding  
> > =\> nil

Thanks,

~Jeremy

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/54ee81/32.png) [@nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nuby2ruby)\
**Post date:** [May 5, 2010, 5:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nokogiri-bug-or-intended-effect/188005/5 "2010-05-05T17:50:09Z")

</div>

Cool, I’ll try that. Thanks man.

~Jeremy

Mike D. wrote:

> If you post this question to nokogiri-talk with a reproducible test  
> case, I  
> think you’ll quickly get a response from the helpful nokogiri community.