HTML::Formatter(3)

NAME
HTML::Formatter - Base class for HTML formatters

VERSION
version 2.11

SYNOPSIS
  use HTML::FormatSomething;
  my $infile  = "whatever.html";
  my $outfile = "whatever.file";
  open OUT, ">$outfile"
   or die "Can't write-open $outfile: $!\n";

  print OUT HTML::FormatSomething->format_file(
    $infile,
      'option1' => 'value1',
      'option2' => 'value2',
      ...
  );
  close(OUT);

DESCRIPTION
HTML::Formatter is a base class for classes that take HTML and format it to some output format. When you take an object of such a base class and call "$formatter-"format( $tree )> with an HTML::TreeBuilder (or HTML::Element) object, they return the appropriately formatted string for the input HTML.

HTML formatters are able to format a HTML syntax tree into various printable formats. Different formatters produce output for different output media. Common for all formatters are that they will return the formatted output when the format() method is called. The format() method takes a HTML::Element object (usually the HTML::TreeBuilder root object) as parameter.

METHODS

  new
    my $formatter = FormatterClass->new(
        option1 => value1, option2 => value2, ...
    );

This creates a new formatter object with the given options.

  format_file

  format_from_file
    $string = FormatterClass->format_file(
        $html_source,
        option1 => value1, option2 => value2, ...
        );

Return a string consisting of the result of using the given class to format the given HTML file according to the given (optional) options. Internally it calls "SomeClass->new( ... )->format( ... )" on a new HTML::TreeBuilder object based on the given HTML file.

  format_string

  format_from_string
    $string = FormatterClass->format_string(
        $html_source,
        option1 => value1, option2 => value2, ...
        );

Return a string consisting of the result of using the given class to format the given HTML source according to the given (optional) options. Internally it calls "SomeClass->new( ... )->format( ... )" on a new HTML::TreeBuilder object based on the given source.

  format
    my $render_string = $formatter->format( $html_tree_object );

This renders the given HTML object according to the options set for $formatter.

After you've used a particular formatter object to format a particular HTML tree object, you probably should not use either again.

SEE ALSO
The three specific formatters:-

HTML::FormatText
    Format HTML into plain text

HTML::FormatPS
    Format HTML into postscript

HTML::FormatRTF
    Format HTML into Rich Text Format

Also the HTML manipulation libraries used - HTML::TreeBuilder, HTML::Element and HTML::Tree

INSTALLATION
See perlmodinstall for information and options on installing Perl modules.

BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
You can make new bug reports, and view existing ones, through the web interface at <http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=HTML-Format>.

AVAILABILITY
The project homepage is <https://metacpan.org/release/HTML-Format>.

The latest version of this module is available from the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN). Visit <http://www.perl.com/CPAN/> to find a CPAN site near you, or see <https://metacpan.org/module/HTML::Format/>.

AUTHORS

•   Nigel Metheringham <nigelm@cpan.org>

•   Sean M Burke <sburke@cpan.org>

•   Gisle Aas <gisle@ActiveState.com>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
This software is copyright (c) 2013 by Nigel Metheringham, 2002-2005 Sean M Burke, 1999-2002 Gisle Aas.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.