Use DOM methods to navigate a document

Problem

You have a HTML document that you want to extract data from. You know generally the structure of the HTML document.

Solution

Use the DOM-like methods available after parsing HTML into a Document.

File input = new File("/tmp/input.html");
Document doc = Jsoup.parse(input, "UTF-8", "http://example.com/");

Element content = doc.getElementById("content");
Elements links = content.getElementsByTag("a");
for (Element link : links) {
  String linkHref = link.attr("href");
  String linkText = link.text();
}

Description

Elements provide a range of DOM-like methods to find elements, and extract and manipulate their data. The DOM getters are contextual: called on a parent Document they find matching elements under the document; called on a child element they find elements under that child. In this way you can winnow in on the data you want.

Finding elements

• getElementById(String id)
• getElementsByTag(String tag)
• getElementsByClass(String className)
• getElementsByAttribute(String key) (and related methods)
• Element siblings: siblingElements(), firstElementSibling(), lastElementSibling(); nextElementSibling(), previousElementSibling()
• Graph: parent(), children(), child(int index)

Element data

• attr(String key) to get and attr(String key, String value) to set attributes
• attributes() to get all attributes
• id(), className() and classNames()
• text() to get and text(String value) to set the text content
• html() to get and html(String value) to set the inner HTML content
• outerHtml() to get the outer HTML value
• data() to get data content (e.g. of script and style tags)
• tag() and tagName()

Manipulating HTML and text

• append(String html), prepend(String html)
• appendText(String text), prependText(String text)
• appendElement(String tagName), prependElement(String tagName)
• html(String value)