XML and Perl: Embedding XML in HTML | 3 | WebReference

XML and Perl: Embedding XML in HTML | 3

XML and Perl::A step futher

inet-news.pl View source | Try it
This script retrieves the top-news headlines from https://www.internetnews.com and builds a news summary from the results.

Now that we've had taste of querying embedded XML tags in an HTML file, let's put our new skills to practical use. https://www.internetnews.com is a comprehensive news site that categorizes news into several sub-sections. The headlines for these news categories are available in XML format.

A few of the available categories are:

Each file contains several <headline> tags similar to the following:
<headline url="https://www.internetnews.com/isp-news/article/0,1087,8_68411,00.html" text="AOL Drops Multi-level Marketing Program"/>

Each <headline> tag represents one news headline and contains both url and text attributes, which contain the URL to the news story and a text summary describing the story respectively. With minor modifications to xml-fetch.pl, we could easily gather the headlines and present them in HTML format.

We'll name the script inet-news.pl and modify the &Print_Header and &Print_Element subroutines to print the HTML headlines summary. Using the same method we used with xml-fetch.pl, we can now build a URL that instructs the script to fetch the headline tag from the news XML file and build an HTML summary.

As with xml-fetch.pl, we could build the URL directly, or use a form. Of course, it's easier to build the URL by using the form. Here's how:

  1. Create a form like this one, whose ACTION is the URL to inet-news.pl and contains 2 fields: url and fields
  2. Insert one of URLs from the list above into the URL form field
  3. Because we want to grab the headline tag from the XML file, enter headline in the form field labeled Elements
  4. Click the button labeled Submit Query. You should see a list of the news headlines that were contained in the XML file

Try the different URLs from above to see the headlines for that news category. Use the resulting URL in your browser if you would like to create a link to the news summary. Congratulations, you've just written a script that does something useful with XML embedded tags. You could use this script to add real-time news to your Web site, or modify it to fit another need on your Web site.

Below are the links that build news summaries for each category:

inet-news.pl View source | Try it
This script retrieves the top-news headlines from https://www.internetnews.com and builds a news summary from the results.

https://www.internet.com

Produced by Jonathan Eisenzopf and
Created: Feb. 14, 1999
Revised: Sep. 19, 1999

URL: https://www.webreference.com/perl/tutorial1/