WWW::Mechanize find_link question.

devnul has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: WWW::Mechanize find_link question. by mrborisguy (Hermit) on May 12, 2005 at 23:35 UTC
i would think something like: `$mech->find_link( text_regex => qr/<img src="next_image">/i );` [download] would do the trick, but i've never got in depth with this module before, so i can't be for sure. it just seems that anything between the opening and closing tags would be the "text" of the link.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: WWW::Mechanize find_link question. by thor (Priest) on May 13, 2005 at 00:11 UTC
I wonder if `find_all_links` returns all of the links in order of appearance. If so, just use that and grab the last item in the array. thor `Feel the white light, the light within Be your own disciple, fan the sparks of will For all of us waiting, your kingdom will come`	[reply] [d/l]
Re: WWW::Mechanize find_link question. by Adrade (Pilgrim) on May 13, 2005 at 00:59 UTC
Dear dEvNuL, Well, I've never worked with the Mechanize library either, but if I understand your question correctly, I would personally use a pattern match to solve your problem. If you want to capture the last link in some HTML: `# If you have a link that includes a space, # then remove the space from the last set of brackets ($linkloc) = ($html =~ m/.href=["']([^"'> ]+)/s);` [download] Now, if you wanted to match the last url in your document that specifically linked an image (if there were more links that you want to ignore that follow the image link): `($linkloc) = ($html =~ m/.href=["']([^"'> ]+)[^>]>\s<img/s);` [download] Using your html, in both cases, `$linkloc` becomes url?page=2 I hope this is helpful. Best, -Adam	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: WWW::Mechanize find_link question. by merlyn (Sage) on May 13, 2005 at 02:49 UTC
/me downvoted, because using regex to match HTML is almost always wrong, unless you use a very correct regex, which you didn't. Please see the other answers in this thread for much better solutions. -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.	[reply]
Re^3: WWW::Mechanize find_link question. by Adrade (Pilgrim) on May 13, 2005 at 06:41 UTC
Dear Merlyn, It so happens that this particular user is trying to parse specifically formatted HTML. I would normally agree with you, but a regex is especially convenient when one is expecting data of a certain structure - this seems to meet that condition. Also, I'm interested in how you would modify the regex to meet your more stringent requirements. Always looking to better my ability here. -Adam	[reply]
Re^4: WWW::Mechanize find_link question. by merlyn (Sage) on May 13, 2005 at 10:11 UTC
Re^5: WWW::Mechanize find_link question. by Adrade (Pilgrim) on May 13, 2005 at 16:54 UTC
Re^4: WWW::Mechanize find_link question. by tphyahoo (Vicar) on May 13, 2005 at 09:41 UTC
Re: WWW::Mechanize find_link question. by devnul (Monk) on May 17, 2005 at 00:03 UTC
For what it's worth, regarding the above debate: In this case using a regular expression (matching a HTML tag) is exactly what I needed to do. I was not aware that the find_link method would allow this. It works flawlessly and IMHO is a perfect solution in this case. Thanks! - Greg	[reply]


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