Question

I have a plain text list like this:

I am the first top-level list item
  I am his son
  Me too
Second one here
  His son
  His daughter
    I am the son of the one above
    Me too because of the indentation
  Another one

And I would like to turn that into:

<ul>
  <li>I am the first top-level list-item
    <ul>
      <li>I am his son</li>
      <li>Me too</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>Second one here
    <ul>
      <li>His son</li>
      <li>His daughter
        <ul>
          <li>I am the son of the one above</li>
          <li>Me too because of the indentation</li>
        </ul>
      </li>
      <li>Another one</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>

How would one go about doing that?

Answer 1

This code does work as expected, but the titles are printed on a new line.

require "rubygems"
require "builder"

def get_indent(line)
  line.to_s =~ /(\s*)(.*)/
  $1.size
end

def create_list(lines, list_indent = -1, 
       b = Builder::XmlMarkup.new(:indent => 2, :target => $stdout))
  while not lines.empty?
    line_indent = get_indent lines.first

    if line_indent == list_indent
      b.li {
        b.text! lines.shift.strip + $/
        if get_indent(lines.first) > line_indent
          create_list(lines, line_indent, b)
        end
      }
    elsif line_indent < list_indent
      break
    else
      b.ul {
        create_list(lines, line_indent, b)
      }
    end
  end
end