Question

I have a ROR app and I would like a little help regarding parsing in Ruby. I have a field that accepts embed code from vimeo. The issue is that the standard code includes and <iframe> in addition to <p> elements. I would like to know if there is a quick way to remove the keep the <iframe> code while stripping out the code following the <p> element.

For example: Here is the code supplied by vidmeo <iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/28638402?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0&amp;color=ffffff" width="400" height="170" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/28638402">Youth Lagoon - Montana</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/tylertwilliams">Tyler T Williams</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

I would like to strip out the code following the

elements, and be left with the following:

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/28638402?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0&amp;color=ffffff" width="400" height="170" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>

Is there a function in ruby, not as complicated as a regex parse, that would allow assist me ? Or is parsing my best bet? I would appreciate you feedback, and any help you can provide. Thank you very much for your time and help!

Answer 1

I’d recommend that you use an HTML parser such as Nokogiri. Something simple like this:

html   = '<iframe ...>...</p>'
doc    = Nokogiri::HTML(html)
iframe = doc.at_css('iframe').to_html

Simple, reliable, and easily quick enough.