Michel Pelletier <michel@digicool.com>:

Documentation for the HTMLParser module, with small changes by FLD.

Doc/lib/libhtmlparser.tex

+\section{\module{HTMLParser} ---
+         Simple HTML and XHTML parser}
+
+\declaremodule{standard}{HTMLParser}
+\modulesynopsis{A simple parser that can handle HTML and XHTML.}
+
+This module defines a class \class{HTMLParser} which serves as the
+basis for parsing text files formatted in HTML\index{HTML} (HyperText
+Mark-up Language) and XHTML.\index{XHTML}
+
+
+\begin{classdesc}{HTMLParser}{}
+The \class{HTMLParser} class is instantiated without arguments.
+
+An HTMLParser instance is fed HTML data and calls handler functions
+when tags begin and end.  The \class{HTMLParser} class is meant to be
+overridden by the user to provide a desired behavior.
+\end{classdesc}
+
+
+\class{HTMLParser} instances have the following methods:
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{reset}{}
+Reset the instance.  Loses all unprocessed data.  This is called
+implicitly at instantiation time.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{feed}{data}
+Feed some text to the parser.  It is processed insofar as it consists
+of complete elements; incomplete data is buffered until more data is
+fed or \method{close()} is called.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{close}{}
+Force processing of all buffered data as if it were followed by an
+end-of-file mark.  This method may be redefined by a derived class to
+define additional processing at the end of the input, but the
+redefined version should always call the \class{HTMLParser} base class
+method \method{close()}.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{getpos}{}
+Return current line number and offset.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{get_starttag_text}{}
+Return the text of the most recently opened start tag.  This should
+not normally be needed for structured processing, but may be useful in
+dealing with HTML ``as deployed'' or for re-generating input with
+minimal changes (whitespace between attributes can be preserved,
+etc.).
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{handle_starttag}{tag, attrs} 
+This method is called to handle the start of a tag.  It is intended to
+be overridden by a derived class; the base class implementation does
+nothing.  
+
+The \var{tag} argument is the name of the tag converted to
+lower case.  The \var{attrs} argument is a list of \code{(\var{name},
+\var{value})} pairs containing the attributes found inside the tag's
+\code{<>} brackets.  The \var{name} will be translated to lower case
+and double quotes and backslashes in the \var{value} have been
+interpreted.  For instance, for the tag \code{<A
+HREF="http://www.cwi.nl/">}, this method would be called as
+\samp{handle_starttag('a', [('href', 'http://www.cwi.nl/')])}.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{handle_startendtag}{tag, attrs}
+Similar to \method{handle_starttag()}, but called when the parser
+encounters an XHTML-style empty tag (\code{<a .../>}).  This method
+may be overridden by subclasses which require this particular lexical
+information; the default implementation simple calls
+\method{handle_starttag()} and \method{handle_endtag()}.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{handle_endtag}{tag}
+This method is called to handle the end tag of an element.  It is
+intended to be overridden by a derived class; the base class
+implementation does nothing.  The \var{tag} argument is the name of
+the tag converted to lower case.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{handle_data}{data}
+This method is called to process arbitrary data.  It is intended to be
+overridden by a derived class; the base class implementation does
+nothing.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{handle_charref}{name} This method is called to
+process a character reference of the form \samp{\&\#\var{ref};}.  It
+is intended to be overridden by a derived class; the base class
+implementation does nothing.  
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{handle_entityref}{name} 
+This method is called to process a general entity reference of the
+form \samp{\&\var{name};} where \var{name} is an general entity
+reference.  It is intended to be overridden by a derived class; the
+base class implementation does nothing.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{handle_comment}{data}
+This method is called when a comment is encountered.  The
+\var{comment} argument is a string containing the text between the
+\samp{<!--} and \samp{-->} delimiters, but not the delimiters
+themselves.  For example, the comment \samp{<!--text-->} will cause
+this method to be called with the argument \code{'text'}.  It is
+intended to be overridden by a derived class; the base class
+implementation does nothing.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+\begin{methoddesc}{handle_decl}{decl}
+Method called when an SGML declaration is read by the parser.  The
+\var{decl} parameter will be the entire contents of the declaration
+inside the \code{<!}...\code{>} markup.It is intended to be overridden
+by a derived class; the base class implementation does nothing.
+\end{methoddesc}
+
+
+\subsection{Example HTML Parser \label{htmlparser-example}}
+
+As a basic example, below is a very basic HTML parser that uses the
+\class{HTMLParser} class to print out tags as they are encountered:
+
+\begin{verbatim}
+from HTMLParser import HTMLParser
+
+class MyHTMLParser(HTMLParser):
+
+    def handle_starttag(self, tag, attrs):
+        print "Encountered the beginning of a %s tag" % tag
+
+    def handle_endtag(self, tag):
+        print "Encountered the end of a %s tag" % tag
+\end{verbatim}