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**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [November 22, 2008, 8:47pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-hpricot-with-htmls/153909 "2008-11-22T20:47:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1
**Author:**  [@ukbell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ukbell)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 8:47pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-hpricot-with-htmls/153909/1 "2008-11-22T20:47:32Z")
I have been working on this program for class all day and am not getting
anywhere, so I figured I would try to ask you guys on the forum. Here is
my code so far:
#!/usr/bin/ruby
# Lab 19
require ‘rubygems’
require ‘fileutils’
require ‘hpricot’
require ‘net/http’
tamper\_args = {
‘my\_countries’ =\> ‘,“Germany”, “Japan”, “United Kingdom”, “United
States”’,
‘my\_vars’ =\> ‘,+pop’,
‘my\_yrs’ =\> ‘,1950,1960,1970,1980,1990,2000’,
‘selected\_vars’ =\> ‘POP’,
‘format\_selected’ =\> ‘csv’
}
host\_name =
“[http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu/php\_site/pwt62/pwt62\_retrieve.php](http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu/php_site/pwt62/pwt62_retrieve.php)”
puts tamper\_screen = Net::HTTP.post\_form(URI.parse(host\_name),
tamper\_args)
puts page\_parse = Hpricot(tamper\_screen.to\_s)
puts page\_parse.search(“pre”)
* * *
It is designed to go through the host\_name link and give the populations
for the 4 countries listed, with years 1950, 1960… through 2000, and
I have to get the data in csv format. I am not sure why I am not able to
do my search the pre tag, which is where the data is stored in the html
doc.
I think it has to do with the .to\_s for the page\_parse variable, but my
program gives me an error when tamper\_screen is not a string.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
---
**Author:**  [@ukbell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ukbell)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 10:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-hpricot-with-htmls/153909/2 "2008-11-22T22:13:27Z")
Hi Rick,
On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 04:43:20AM +0900, Rick Rick wrote:
> require ‘hpricot’
>
> * * *
>
> It is designed to go through the host\_name link and give the populations
> for the 4 countries listed, with years 1950, 1960… through 2000, and
> I have to get the data in csv format. I am not sure why I am not able to
> do my search the pre tag, which is where the data is stored in the html
> doc.
>
> I think it has to do with the .to\_s for the page\_parse variable, but my
> program gives me an error when tamper\_screen is not a string.
Try using the body method. post\_form returns a response object, and you
need to grab the body of the response:
require ‘rubygems’
require ‘fileutils’
require ‘hpricot’
require ‘net/http’
tamper\_args = {
‘my\_countries’ =\> ‘,“Germany”, “Japan”, “United Kingdom”, “United
States”’,
‘my\_vars’ =\> ‘,+pop’,
‘my\_yrs’ =\> ‘,1950,1960,1970,1980,1990,2000’,
‘selected\_vars’ =\> ‘POP’,
‘format\_selected’ =\> ‘csv’
}
host\_name =
“[http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu/php\_site/pwt62/pwt62\_retrieve.php](http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu/php_site/pwt62/pwt62_retrieve.php)”
tamper\_screen = Net::HTTP.post\_form(URI.parse(host\_name), tamper\_args)
page\_parse = Hpricot(tamper\_screen.body)
puts page\_parse.search(“pre”).inner\_text
---
**Author:**  [@ukbell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ukbell)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 11:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-hpricot-with-htmls/153909/3 "2008-11-22T23:12:46Z")
Thank you so much!!! I can finally get past that part.
---
**Author:**  [@ukbell](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ukbell)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 2:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-hpricot-with-htmls/153909/4 "2008-11-23T14:57:50Z")
Just to continue along with this same program, I am now trying to change
my parameters for the tamper\_args to allow the user to key in a country
name, and the program automatically changes the country in
‘my\_countries’ to whatever counties the user wants to examine… Is
there a way to allow for this?