# pup
pup is a command line tool for processing HTML. It reads from stdin,
prints to stdout, and allows the user to filter parts of the page using
[CSS selectors](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/CSS/Getting_started/Selectors).
Inspired by [jq](http://stedolan.github.io/jq/), pup aims to be a
fast and flexible way of exploring HTML from the terminal.
## Install
Direct downloads are available through the [releases page](https://github.com/EricChiang/pup/releases/latest).
If you have Go installed on your computer just run `go get`.
go get github.com/ericchiang/pup
If you're on OS X, use [Homebrew](http://brew.sh/) to install (no Go required).
brew install https://raw.githubusercontent.com/EricChiang/pup/master/pup.rb
## Quick start
```bash
$ curl -s https://news.ycombinator.com/
```
Ew, HTML. Let's run that through some pup selectors:
```bash
$ curl -s https://news.ycombinator.com/ | pup 'table table tr:nth-last-of-type(n+2) td.title a'
```
Okay, how about only the links?
```bash
$ curl -s https://news.ycombinator.com/ | pup 'table table tr:nth-last-of-type(n+2) td.title a attr{href}'
```
Even better, let's grab the titles too:
```bash
$ curl -s https://news.ycombinator.com/ | pup 'table table tr:nth-last-of-type(n+2) td.title a json{}'
```
## Basic Usage
```bash
$ cat index.html | pup [flags] '[selectors] [display function]'
```
## Examples
Download a webpage with wget.
```bash
$ wget http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots_exclusion_standard -O robots.html
```
####Clean and indent
By default pup will fill in missing tags and properly indent the page.
```bash
$ cat robots.html
# nasty looking HTML
$ cat robots.html | pup --color
# cleaned, indented, and colorful HTML
```
####Filter by tag
```bash
$ cat robots.html | pup 'title'
Robots exclusion standard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
```
####Filter by id
```bash
$ cat robots.html | pup 'span#See_also'
See also
```
####Filter by attribute
```bash
$ cat robots.html | pup 'th[scope="row"]'
Exclusion standards
|
Related marketing topics
|
Search marketing related topics
|
Search engine spam
|
Linking
|
People
|
Other
|
```
####Pseudo Classes
CSS selectors have a group of specifiers called ["pseudo classes"](
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Pseudo-classes) which are pretty
cool. pup implements a majority of the relevant ones them.
Here are some examples.
```bash
$ cat robots.html | pup 'a[rel]:empty'
```
```bash
$ cat robots.html | pup ':contains("History")'
History
History
```
```bash
$ cat robots.html | pup ':parent-of([action="edit"])'
Edit links
```
For a complete list, view the [implemented selectors](#implemented-selectors)
section.
####`+`, `>`, and `,`
These are intermediate characters that declare special instructions. For
instance, a comma `,` allows pup to specify multiple groups of selectors.
```bash
$ cat robots.html | pup 'title, h1 span[dir="auto"]'
Robots exclusion standard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robots exclusion standard
```
####Chain selectors together
When combining selectors, the HTML nodes selected by the previous selector will
be passed to the next ones.
```bash
$ cat robots.html | pup 'h1#firstHeading'
Robots exclusion standard
```
```bash
$ cat robots.html | pup 'h1#firstHeading span'
Robots exclusion standard
```
## Implemented Selectors
For further examples of these selectors head over to [MDN](
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference).
```bash
pup '.class'
pup '#id'
pup 'element'
pup 'selector + selector'
pup 'selector > selector'
pup '[attribute]'
pup '[attribute="value"]'
pup '[attribute*="value"]'
pup '[attribute~="value"]'
pup '[attribute^="value"]'
pup '[attribute$="value"]'
pup ':empty'
pup ':first-child'
pup ':first-of-type'
pup ':last-child'
pup ':last-of-type'
pup ':only-child'
pup ':only-of-type'
pup ':contains("text")'
pup ':nth-child(n)'
pup ':nth-of-type(n)'
pup ':nth-last-child(n)'
pup ':nth-last-of-type(n)'
pup ':not(selector)'
pup ':parent-of(selector)'
```
You can mix and match selectors as you wish.
```bash
cat index.html | pup 'element#id[attribute="value"]:first-of-type'
```
## Display Functions
Non-HTML selectors which effect the output type are implemented as functions
which can be provided as a final argument.
#### `text{}`
Print all text from selected nodes and children in depth first order.
```bash
$ cat robots.html | pup '.mw-headline text{}'
History
About the standard
Disadvantages
Alternatives
Examples
Nonstandard extensions
Crawl-delay directive
Allow directive
Sitemap
Host
Universal "*" match
Meta tags and headers
See also
References
External links
```
#### `attr{attrkey}`
Print the values of all attributes with a given key from all selected nodes.
```bash
$ cat robots.html | pup '.catlinks div attr{id}'
mw-normal-catlinks
mw-hidden-catlinks
```
#### `json{}`
Print HTML as JSON.
```bash
$ cat robots.html | pup 'div#p-namespaces a'
Article
Talk
```
```bash
$ cat robots.html | pup 'div#p-namespaces a json{}'
[
{
"accesskey": "c",
"href": "/wiki/Robots_exclusion_standard",
"tag": "a",
"text": "Article",
"title": "View the content page [c]"
},
{
"accesskey": "t",
"href": "/wiki/Talk:Robots_exclusion_standard",
"tag": "a",
"text": "Talk",
"title": "Discussion about the content page [t]"
}
]
```
Use the `-i` / `--indent` flag to control the intent level.
```bash
$ cat robots.html | pup -i 4 'div#p-namespaces a json{}'
[
{
"accesskey": "c",
"href": "/wiki/Robots_exclusion_standard",
"tag": "a",
"text": "Article",
"title": "View the content page [c]"
},
{
"accesskey": "t",
"href": "/wiki/Talk:Robots_exclusion_standard",
"tag": "a",
"text": "Talk",
"title": "Discussion about the content page [t]"
}
]
```
If the selectors only return one element the results will be printed as a JSON
object, not a list.
```bash
$ cat robots.html | pup --indent 4 'title json{}'
{
"tag": "title",
"text": "Robots exclusion standard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"
}
```
Because there is no universal standard for converting HTML/XML to JSON, a
method has been chosen which hopefully fits. The goal is simply to get the
output of pup into a more consumable format.
## Flags
Run `pup --help` for a list of further options