HTML::WikiConverter::DUsercContributed Perl DoHTML::WikiConverter::Dialects(3)NAMEHTML::WikiConverter::Dialects - How to add a dialect
SYNOPSIS
# In your dialect module:
package HTML::WikiConverter::MySlimWiki;
use base 'HTML::WikiConverter';
sub rules { {
b => { start => '**', end => '**' },
i => { start => '//', end => '//' },
strong => { alias => 'b' },
em => { alias => 'i' },
hr => { replace => "\n----\n" }
} }
# In a nearby piece of code:
package main;
use Test::More tests => 5;
my $wc = new HTML::WikiConverter(
dialect => 'MySlimWiki'
);
is( $wc->html2wiki( '<b>text</b>' ), '**text**', b );
is( $wc->html2wiki( '<i>text</i>' ), '//text//', i );
is( $wc->html2wiki( '<strong>text</strong>' ), '**text**', 'strong' );
is( $wc->html2wiki( '<em>text</em>' ), '//text//', 'em' );
is( $wc->html2wiki( '<hr/>' ), '----', 'hr' );
DESCRIPTION
HTML::WikiConverter (or H::WC, for short) is an HTML to wiki converter.
It can convert HTML source into a variety of wiki markups, called wiki
"dialects". This manual describes how you to create your own dialect
to be plugged into HTML::WikiConverter.
DIALECTS
Each dialect has a separate dialect module containing rules for
converting HTML into wiki markup specific for that dialect. Currently,
all dialect modules are in the "HTML::WikiConverter::" package space
and subclass HTML::WikiConverter. For example, the MediaWiki dialect
module is HTML::WikiConverter::MediaWiki, while PhpWiki's is
HTML::WikiConverter::PhpWiki. However, dialect modules need not be in
the "HTML::WikiConverter::" package space; you may just as easily use
"package MyWikiDialect;" and H::WC will Do The Right Thing.
From now on, I'll be using the terms "dialect" and "dialect module"
interchangeably.
Subclassing
To interface with H::WC, dialects need to subclass it. This is done
like so at the start of the dialect module:
package HTML::WikiConverter::MySlimWiki;
use base 'HTML::WikiConverter';
Conversion rules
Dialects guide H::WC's conversion process with a set of rules that
define how HTML elements are turned into their wiki counterparts. Each
rule corresponds to an HTML tag and there may be any number of rules.
Rules are specified in your dialect's "rules()" method, which returns a
reference to a hash of rules. Each entry in the hash maps a tag name to
a set of subrules, as in:
$tag => \%subrules
where $tag is the name of the HTML tag (e.g., "b", "em", etc.) and
%subrules contains subrules that specify how that tag will be converted
when it is encountered in the HTML input.
Subrules
The following subrules are recognized:
start
end
preserve
attributes
empty
replace
alias
block
line_format
line_prefix
trim
A simple example
The following rules could be used for a dialect that uses "*asterisks*"
for bold and "_underscores_" for italic text:
sub rules {
b => { start => '*', end => '*' },
i => { start => '_', end => '_' },
}
Aliases
To add "<strong>" and "<em>" as aliases of "<b>" and "<i>", use the
"alias" subrule:
strong => { alias => 'b' },
em => { alias => 'i' },
(The "alias" subrule cannot be used with any other subrule.)
Blocks
Many dialects separate paragraphs and other block-level elements with a
blank line. To indicate this, use the "block" subrule:
p => { block => 1 },
(To better support nested block elements, if a block elements are
nested inside each other, blank lines are only added to the outermost
element.)
Line formatting
Many dialects require that the text of an element be contained on a
single line of text, or that it cannot contain any newlines, etc. These
options can be specified using the "line_format" subrule, which can be
assigned the value "single", "multi", or "blocks".
If the element must be contained on a single line, then the
"line_format" subrule should be "single". If the element can span
multiple lines, but there can be no blank lines contained within, then
use "multi". If blank lines (which delimit blocks) are allowed, then
use "blocks". For example, paragraphs are specified like so in the
MediaWiki dialect:
p => { block => 1, line_format => 'multi', trim => 'both' },
Trimming whitespace
The "trim" subrule specifies whether leading or trailing whitespace (or
both) should be stripped from the element. To strip leading whitespace
only, use "leading"; for trailing whitespace, use "trailing"; for both,
use the aptly named "both"; for neither (the default), use "none".
Line prefixes
Some elements require that each line be prefixed with a particular
string. This is specified with the "line_prefix" subrule. For example,
preformatted text in MediaWiki is prefixed with a space:
pre => { block => 1, line_prefix => ' ' },
Replacement
In some cases, conversion from HTML to wiki markup is as simple as
string replacement. To replace a tag and its contents with a particular
string, use the "replace" subrule. For example, in PhpWiki, three
percent signs, "%%%", represents a line break, "<br>", hence:
br => { replace => '%%%' },
(The "replace" subrule cannot be used with any other subrule.)
Preserving HTML tags
Some dialects allow a subset of HTML in their markup. While H::WC
ignores unhandled HTML tags by default (i.e., if H::WC encounters a tag
that does not exist in a dialect's rule specification, then the
contents of the tag is simply passed through to the wiki markup), you
may specify that some be preserved using the "preserve" subrule. For
example, to allow "<font>" tag in wiki markup:
font => { preserve => 1 },
Preserved tags may also specify a list of attributes that may also
passthrough from HTML to wiki markup. This is done with the
"attributes" subrule:
font => { preserve => 1, attributes => [ qw/ style class / ] },
(The "attributes" subrule can only be used if the "preserve" subrule is
also present.)
Some HTML elements have no content (e.g., line breaks, images) and the
wiki dialect might require them to be preserved in a more XHTML-
friendly way. To indicate that a preserved tag should have no content,
use the "empty" subrule. This will cause the element to be replaced
with "<tag />" and no end tag. For example, MediaWiki handles line
breaks like so:
br => {
preserve => 1,
attributes => [ qw/ id class title style clear / ],
empty => 1
},
This will convert, for example, "<br clear='both'>" into "<br
clear='both' />". Without specifying the "empty" subrule, this would be
converted into the (probably undesirable) "<br clear='both'></br>".
(The "empty" subrule can only be used if the "preserve" subrule is also
present.)
Rules that depend on attribute values
In some circumstances, you might want your dialect's conversion rules
to depend on the value of one or more attributes. This can be achieved
by producing rules in a conditional manner within "rules()". For
example:
sub rules {
my $self = shift;
my %rules = (
em => { start => "''", end => "''" },
strong => { start => "'''", end => "'''" },
);
$rules{i} = { preserve => 1 } if $self->preserve_italic;
$rules{b} = { preserve => 1 } if $self->preserve_bold;
return \%rules;
}
Dynamic subrules
Instead of simple strings, you may use coderefs as values for the
"start", "end", "replace", and "line_prefix" subrules. If you do, the
code will be called when the subrule is applied, and will be passed
three arguments: the current H::WC object, the current HTML::Element
node being operated on, and a reference to the hash containing the
dialect's subrules associated with elements of that type.
For example, MoinMoin handles lists like so:
ul => { line_format => 'multi', block => 1, line_prefix => ' ' },
li => { start => \&_li_start, trim => 'leading' },
ol => { alias => 'ul' },
It then defines "_li_start()":
sub _li_start {
my( $self, $node, $subrules ) = @_;
my $bullet = '';
$bullet = '*' if $node->parent->tag eq 'ul';
$bullet = '1.' if $node->parent->tag eq 'ol';
return "\n$bullet ";
}
This prefixes every unordered list item with "*" and every ordered list
item with "1.", which MoinMoin requires. It also puts each list item on
its own line and places a space between the prefix and the content of
the list item.
Subrule validation
Certain subrule combinations are not allowed. Hopefully it's intuitive
why this is, but in case it's not, prohibited combinations have been
mentioned above parenthetically. For example, the "replace" and "alias"
subrules cannot be combined with any other subrules, and "attributes"
can only be specified alongside "preserve". Invalid subrule
combinations will trigger a fatal error when the H::WC object is
instantiated.
Dialect attributes
H::WC's constructor accepts a number of attributes that help determine
how conversion takes place. Dialects can alter these attributes or add
their own by defining an "attributes()" method, which returns a
reference to a hash of attributes. Each entry in the hash maps the
attribute's name to an attribute specification, as in:
$attr => \%spec
where $attr is the name of the attribute and %spec is a
Params::Validate specification for the attribute.
For example, to add a boolean attribute called "camel_case" which is
disabled by default:
sub attributes {
camel_case => { default => 0 },
}
Attributes defined liks this are given accessor and mutator methods via
Perl's "AUTOLOAD" mechanism, so you can later say:
my $ok = $wc->camel_case;
$wc->camel_case(0);
You may override the default H::WC attributes using this mechanism. For
example, while H::WC considers the "base_uri" attribute optional, it is
required for the PbWiki dialect. PbWiki can override this default-
optional behavior by saying:
sub attributes {
base_uri => { optional => 0 }
}
Preprocessing
The first step H::WC takes in converting HTML source to wiki markup is
to parse the HTML into a syntax tree using HTML::TreeBuilder. It is
often useful for dialects to preprocess the tree prior to converting it
into wiki markup. Dialects that need to preprocess the tree can define
a "preprocess_node" method that will be called on each node of the tree
(traversal is done in pre-order). The method receives two arguments,
the H::WC object, and the current HTML::Element node being traversed.
It may modify the node or decide to ignore it; its return value is
discarded.
Built-in preprocessors
Because they are commonly needed, H::WC automatically carries out two
preprocessing steps, regardless of the dialect: 1) relative URIs in
images and links are converted to absolute URIs (based upon the
"base_uri" parameter), and 2) ignorable text (e.g. between a "</td>"
and "<td>") is discarded.
H::WC also provides additional preprocessing steps that may be
explicitly enabled by dialect modules.
strip_aname
Removes any anchor elements that do not contain an "href"
attribute.
caption2para
Removes table captions and reinserts them as paragraphs before the
table.
Dialects may apply these optional preprocessing steps by calling them
as methods on the dialect object inside "preprocess_node". For example:
sub preprocess_node {
my( $self, $node ) = @_;
$self->strip_aname($node);
$self->caption2para($node);
}
Postprocessing
Once the work of converting HTML is complete, it is sometimes useful to
postprocess the resulting wiki markup. Postprocessing can be used to
clean up whitespace, fix subtle bugs introduced in the markup during
conversion, etc.
Dialects that want to postprocess the wiki markup should define a
"postprocess_output" method that will be called just before the
"html2wiki" method returns to the client. The method will be passed two
arguments, the H::WC object and a reference to the wiki markup. The
method may modify the wiki markup that the reference points to; its
return value is discarded.
For example, to replace a series of line breaks with a pair of
newlines, a dialect might implement this:
sub postprocess_output {
my( $self, $outref ) = @_;
$$outref =~ s/<br>\s*<br>/\n\n/gs;
}
(This example assumes that HTML line breaks were replaced with "<br>"
in the wiki markup.)
Dialect utility methods
H::WC defines a set of utility methods that dialect modules may find
useful.
get_elem_contents
my $wiki = $wc->get_elem_contents( $node );
Converts the contents of $node into wiki markup and returns the
resulting wiki markup.
get_wiki_page
my $title = $wc->get_wiki_page( $url );
Attempts to extract the title of a wiki page from the given URL,
returning the title on success, "undef" on failure. If "wiki_uri" is
empty, this method always return "undef". See "ATTRIBUTES" in
HTML::WikiConverter for details on how the "wiki_uri" attribute is
interpreted.
is_camel_case
my $ok = $wc->is_camel_case( $str );
Returns true if $str is in CamelCase, false otherwise. CamelCase-ness
is determined using the same rules that Kwiki's formatting module uses.
get_attr_str
my $attr_str = $wc->get_attr_str( $node, @attrs );
Returns a string containing the specified attributes in the given node.
The returned string is suitable for insertion into an HTML tag. For
example, if $node contains the HTML
<style id="ht" class="head" onclick="editPage()">Header</span>
and @attrs contains "id" and "class", then "get_attr_str()" will return
'id="ht" class="head"'.
_attr
my $value = $wc->_attr( $name );
Returns the value of the named attribute. This is rarely needed since
you can access attribute values by treating the attribute name as a
method (i.e., "$wc->$name"). This low-level method of accessing
attributes is provided for when you need to override an attribute's
accessor/mutator method, as in:
sub attributes { {
my_attr => { default => 1 },
} }
sub my_attr {
my( $wc, $name, $new_value ) = @_;
# do something special
return $wc->_attr( $name => $new_value );
}
AUTHOR
David J. Iberri <diberri@cpan.org>
COPYRIGHT & LICENSE
Copyright 2006 David J. Iberri, all rights reserved.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
perl v5.14.1 2008-05-18 HTML::WikiConverter::Dialects(3)
