Question

so here is the problem. I am currently creating an Android app that is going to require me to parse some html so i can display it on the app screen.

I don’t know how to do that properly and was wondering if you guys could point me in the right direction or show me a good guide.

What I want to do is go through the html code and take out certain items (specifically the food items, you will see in a minute). I don’t want to just link the person to the website or use webview to display the webpage in the app cause I personally feel like that doesn’t look good. What i want to do is pull the food items from the html and then just put that part on my app in the form of a string or something.

—–Here is a bit of the html from the site I am using for reference——

enter code here

<a href="http://www.campusdish.com/en-US/CSMA/OldDominion/Locations/rda.aspx?RCN=m784&amp;MI=122&amp;RN=CEREAL  HOT  GRITS" OnClick="javascript: NewWindow('http://www.campusdish.com/en-US/CSMA/OldDominion/Locations/rda.aspx?RCN=m784&amp;MI=122&amp;RN=CEREAL  HOT  GRITS', 'RDA_window',  'width=450, height=600, scrollbars=no, toolbar=no,  directories=no, status=no, menubar=no, copyhistory=no');return false" Class="recipeLink">CEREAL  HOT  GRITS</a>

                <br>

              </td>

            </tr>

          </table>

        </div>

      </td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

      <td>

        <div class="menuTxt">

          <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" bordercolor="green">

            <tr valign="top">

              <td colspan="3">

                <a href="http://www.campusdish.com/en-US/CSMA/OldDominion/Locations/rda.aspx?RCN=m860&amp;MI=122&amp;RN=PANCAKES  BUTTERMILK" OnClick="javascript: NewWindow('http://www.campusdish.com/en-US/CSMA/OldDominion/Locations/rda.aspx?RCN=m860&amp;MI=122&amp;RN=PANCAKES  BUTTERMILK', 'RDA_window',  'width=450, height=600, scrollbars=no, toolbar=no,  directories=no, status=no, menubar=no, copyhistory=no');return false" Class="recipeLink">PANCAKES  BUTTERMILK  </a>

——end html——-

So I want to just extract the words “CEREAL HOT GRITS” and “PANCAKES BUTTERMILK” for example.

Please and thank you for your help!

Answer 1

It might not be the most efficient way, but if you take the HTML source code and put it in a string, and then parse through it that way line by line. Whenever you hit a line with <a href at the beginning, then you can check it, and see if it is a food item (don’t know how you’d do that without know the rest of the links, but there is probably a different structure or something, or food items might start after link 7 or something. Websites usually have a recognizable pattern). If it is a food item, then grab the link (for the image) and the name, or whatever you need.