Mechanize users - Sep 2007 - Selecting Links with their parent class attribute?

Hi all,

Trying to figure out a quick way to do something.  I have a yahoo groups
list, and it has listings that look like this:

</td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="ygrp-g">
<span class="ygrp-nowrap">
<em><a
href="/group/freecycledc/">freecycledc</a></em>
</span>
<a href="/group/freecycledc/"><img
src="http://f9g.yahoofs.com/groups/g_11337116/.HomePage/__tn_/4d04.jpg?grA.E.GBtlOnTmsC"
width="96" height="48" alt=""></a>
<ul class="ygrp-ul ygrp-grpsa"><li class="smalltype
ygrp-nowrap">
<a href="/group/freecycledc/messages?o=1"><span
class="ygrp-grpsan">394</span> New Messages</a>
</li>
<li class="smalltype ygrp-nowrap">
<a href="/group/freecycledc/spnew?"><span
class="ygrp-grpsan">9</span>
New Photos</a>

</li>
</ul>
</td></tr>


Basically, right now I''m trying to get a group listing.  I would think
I
could select links based on the "ygrp-nowrap" class variable, but
it''s not
working.  Any advice on the how to select the hrefs (and strings) in this
type of a configuration?

Thanks,

Will
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Hey Will,

On Sun, Sep 23, 2007 at 10:52:51AM -0400, William Flanagan
wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Trying to figure out a quick way to do something.  I have a yahoo groups
> list, and it has listings that look like this:
> 
> </td></tr>
> <tr><td colspan="2" class="ygrp-g">
> <span class="ygrp-nowrap">
> <em><a
href="/group/freecycledc/">freecycledc</a></em>
> </span>
> <a href="/group/freecycledc/"><img
>
src="http://f9g.yahoofs.com/groups/g_11337116/.HomePage/__tn_/4d04.jpg?grA.E.GBtlOnTmsC"
> width="96" height="48" alt=""></a>
> <ul class="ygrp-ul ygrp-grpsa"><li class="smalltype
ygrp-nowrap">
> <a href="/group/freecycledc/messages?o=1"><span
> class="ygrp-grpsan">394</span> New Messages</a>
> </li>
> <li class="smalltype ygrp-nowrap">
> <a href="/group/freecycledc/spnew?"><span
class="ygrp-grpsan">9</span>
> New Photos</a>
> 
> </li>
> </ul>
> </td></tr>
> 
> 
> Basically, right now I''m trying to get a group listing.  I would
think I
> could select links based on the "ygrp-nowrap" class variable, but
it''s not
> working.  Any advice on the how to select the hrefs (and strings) in this
> type of a configuration?
Mechanize lets you get ahold of the hpricot object and lets you click on
links returned from hpricot.  So I would suggest using hpricot searching
for this task.

I think the following example may be close to what you''re looking for:

  page.search("//li[@class=''smalltype
ygrp-nowrap'']/a").each do |link|
    puts link.inner_text
    f = mech.click(link)
  end

Hope that helps!

-- 
Aaron Patterson
http://tenderlovemaking.com/