This module defines a class which can serve as a base for parsing text files formatted in the HyperText Mark-up Language (HTML). The class is not directly concerned with I/O — it must be provided with input in string form via a method, and makes calls to methods of a ``formatter'' object in order to produce output. The HTMLParser class is designed to be used as a base class for other classes in order to add functionality, and allows most of its methods to be extended or overridden. In turn, this class is derived from and extends the SGMLParser class defined in module sgmllib. Two implementations of formatter objects are provided in the formatter module; refer to the documentation for that module for information on the formatter interface. sgmllib SGMLParser formatter
The following is a summary of the interface defined by sgmllib.SGMLParser:
For example, to parse the entire contents of a file, use:
parser.feed(open('myfile.html').read()) parser.close()
The module defines a single class:
In addition to tag methods, the HTMLParser class provides some additional methods and instance variables for use within tag methods.