HTML::Formatter(3)					User Contributed Perl Documentation					HTML::Formatter(3)

NAME

       HTML::Formatter - Base class for HTML formatters

SYNOPSIS

	 use HTML::FormatSomething;
	 my $infile  = "whatever.html";
	 my $outfile = "whatever.file";
	 open OUT, ">$outfile"
	  or die "Can't write-open $outfile: $!
Aborting";
	 binmode(OUT);
	 print OUT HTML::FormatSomething->format_file(
	   $infile,
	     'option1' => 'value1',
	     'option2' => 'value2',
	     ...
	 );
	 close(OUT);

DESCRIPTION

       HTML::Formatter is a base class for classes that take HTML and format it to some output format.	When you take an object of such a base
       class and call "$formatter->format( $tree )" with an HTML::TreeBuilder (or HTML::Element) object, they return the

       HTML formatters are able to format a HTML syntax tree into various printable formats.  Different formatters produce output for different
       output media.  Common for all formatters are that they will return the formatted output when the format() method is called.  The format()
       method takes a HTML::Element object (usually the HTML::TreeBuilder root object) as parameter.

       Here are the four main methods that this class provides:

       SomeClass->format_file( $filename, option1 => value1, option2 => value2, ... )
	   This returns a string consisting of the result of using the given class to format the given HTML file according to the given (optional)
	   options.  Internally it calls "SomeClass->new( ... )->format( ... )" on a new HTML::TreeBuilder object based on the given HTML file.

       SomeClass->format_string( $html_source, option1 => value1, option2 => value2, ... )
	   This returns a string consisting of the result of using the given class to format the given HTML source according to the given
	   (optional) options. Internally it calls "SomeClass->new( ... )->format( ... )" on a new HTML::TreeBuilder object based on the given
	   source.

       $formatter = SomeClass->new( option1 => value1, option2 => value2, ... )
	   This creates a new formatter object with the given options.

       $render_string = $formatter->format( $html_tree_object )
	   This renders the given HTML object accerting to the options set for $formatter.

       After you've used a particular formatter object to format a particular HTML tree object, you probably should not use either again.

SEE ALSO

       HTML::FormatText, HTML::FormatPS, HTML::FormatRTF

       HTML::TreeBuilder, HTML::Element, HTML::Tree

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (c) 1995-2002 Gisle Aas, and 2002- Sean M. Burke. All rights reserved.

       This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

       This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of
       merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

AUTHOR

       Current maintainer: Sean M. Burke <sburke@cpan.org>

       Original author: Gisle Aas <gisle@aas.no>

perl v5.12.1							    2004-06-02							HTML::Formatter(3)