EfTidyNet: .NET Wrapper for Tidy library

ThatsAlok

4.87/5 (11 votes)

Mar 5, 2008

GPL3

8 min read

121029

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Free component for parsing HTML, .NET version of EfTidyCom

Introduction

Before I go into details, I want you to know what EfTidy actually is. EfTidy is a wrapper component of Tidy library, and if you don't know what Tidy is, here is a little description:

"TidyLib is an open source utility for tidying up HTML. Tidy is composed from an HTML parser and an HTML pretty printer. The parser goes to considerable lengths to correct common markup errors. It also provides advice on how to make your pages more accessible to people with disabilities, and can be used to convert HTML content into XML as XHTML. Tidy is W3C open source and available free. It has been successfully compiled on a large number of platforms, and is being integrated into many HTML authoring tools."

- By Mr. Dave Raggett

This is the .NET version of the EfTidyCom component (also present on The Code Project). Before moving further, this library is dedicated to the memory of my mother Late Mrs. Saroj Gupta, whom I lost recently (29^th January, 2008), just want to say Mummy!, I love you.

I have had a lot of demand to provide the .NET version of EfTidyCom library as COM is losing focus and .NET seems to be the future. This library is written in VC++.NET (by mixing managed and unmanaged code). Please find a reference and test cases in this article. Thanks and just pray for my mother that she live happy wherever she is.

This is also an updated version of EfTidyCom. Some features (Node and Attribute classes) have been removed as I think they are not of much use!

Library Reference

EfTidy contains two classes:

TidyNetOpt [under EfTidyNet namespace]
TidyNet [under EfTidyNet::EfTidyOpt namespace]

EfTidy also contains four enumerations:

ECharEncodingType
EOutputType
EIndentScheme
EDoctypeModes

Now, let's take each interface one by one.

1. TidyNet

First, let's check out each and every method or property present in this interface, and the functions they perform:

Property/Method name	Parameters	Get/Put	Description
`TidyFiletoMem`	`const String^ SFileName , String^ % SResult`	n/a	Write output to memory.
`TidyFileToFile`	`const String^ SsourceFileName , const String^ SDestFile`	n/a	Write output in file.
`TidyMemToMem`	`String^ SsourceData , String^ % SResult`	n/a	Write output to memory.
`TidyMemtoFile`	`String^ SBuffer , String^ SDestFile`	n/a	Take input as buffer and output in file.
`TotalWarnings`	`long %pVal`	`Get`	Return the total number of warnings after the above four operations.
`TotalErrors`	`long %pVal`	`Get`	Return the total number of errors after the above four operations.
`ErrorWarning`	`void`	`String^`	Return the buffer, which contains human readable errors/ warnings.
`Option`	`void`	`EfTidyOpt:: TidyNetOpt^`	Set the `Option` for the `Tidy` library.

2. TidyNetOpt

Here is a list of properties and methods for the ItidyOption interface:

Property/Method name	Parameter	Get/Put	Description
`LoadConfigFile`	`String^`	n/a	Load option settings from a configuration file.
`ResetToDefaultValue`	`Void`	n/a	Reset options to default settings.
`Doctype`	`String^`	Both	Doctype declaration generated by `Tidy`.
`TidyMark`	`BOOL`	Both	For meta element indicating tidied doc.
`HideEndTag`	`BOOL`	Both	Suppress optional end tags.
`EncloseText`	`BOOL`	Both	If yes, text in the body is wrapped in `<p>`.
`EncloseBlockText`	`BOOL`	Both	If yes, text in blocks is wrapped in `<p>`
`LogicalEmphasis`	`BOOL`	Both	Replace `i` by `em` and `b` by `strong`.
`DefaultAltText`	`String^`	Both	Default text for `alt` attribute.
`Clean`	`BOOL`	Both	Replace presentational clutter by style rules.
`DropFontTags`	`BOOL`	Both	Discard presentation tags.
`DropEmptyParas`	`BOOL`	Both	Discard empty `p` elements.
`Word2000`	`BOOL`	Both	Both draconian cleaning for Word2000.
`FixBadComment`	`BOOL`	Both	Both fix comments with adjacent hyphens.
`FixBackslash`	`BOOL`	Both	Both fix URLs by replacing `\` with `/`.
`NewEmptyTags`	`String^`	Both	Declared empty tags.
`NewInlineTags`	`String^`	Both	Declared inline tags.
`NewBlockLevelTags`	`String^`	Both	Declared block tags.
`NewPreTags`	`String^`	Both	Declared `pre` tags.
`OutputType`	`EOutputType`	Both	You can set the output type from here, like you can get the output as XML, XHTML or pure HTML.
`InputAsXML`	`BOOL`	Both	Treat input as XML.
`ADDXmlDecl`	`BOOL`	Both	Add >?xml ?< for XML docs.
`AddXmlSpace`	`BOOL`	Both	If set to yes, adds XML: space attr as needed.
`Bare`	`BOOL`	Both	Make bare HTML.
`AssumeXmlProcins`	`BOOL`	Both	If set to yes, PIs must end with ?>.
`CharEncoding`	`ECharEncodingType`	Both	Set/Get in/out character encoding.
`InCharEncoding`	`ECharEncodingType`	Both	Input character encoding (if different).
`OutCharEncoding`	`ECharEncodingType`	Both	Output character encoding (if different).
`NumericsEntities`	`BOOL`	Both	Use numeric entities for symbols.
`QuoteMarks`	`BOOL`	Both	Output " marks as `"`.
`QuoteNBSP`	`BOOL`	Both	Both output non-breaking space as entity.
`QuoteAmpersand`	`BOOL`	Both	Output naked ampersand as `&`.
`OutputTagInUpperCase`	`BOOL`	Both	Output tags in upper not lower case.
`OutputAttrInUpperCase`	`BOOL`	Both	Output attributes in upper not lower case.
`WrapScriptlets`	`BOOL`	Both	Wrap within JavaScript string literals.
`WrapAttVals`	`BOOL`	Both	Wrap within attribute values.
`WrapSection`	`BOOL`	Both	Wrap within section tags.
`WrapAsp`	`BOOL`	Both	Wrap within ASP pseudo elements.
`WrapJste`	`BOOL`	Both	Wrap within JSTE pseudo elements.
`WrapPhp`	`BOOL`	Both	Wrap within PHP pseudo elements.
`Indent`	`EIndentScheme`	Both	Indent the content of appropriate tags.
`IndentSpace`	`long`	Both	Indentation of n spaces.
`WrapLen`	`long`	Both	Set wrap margin for output.
`TabSize`	`long`	Both	Expand tabs to n spaces.
`IndentAttributes`	`long`	Both	New-line + indent before each attribute.
`BreakBeforeBR`	`BOOL`	Both	Output new-line before or not.
`LiteralAttribs`	`BOOL`	Both	If `true`, attributes may use new-lines.
`MarkUp`	`BOOL`	Both
`ShowWarnings`	`BOOL`	Both	On/Off
`Quiet`	`BOOL`	Both	No 'Parsing X', guessed DTD or summary.
`KeepTime`	`BOOL`	Both	If yes, last modified time is preserved.
`ErrorFile`	`String^`	Both	File name to write errors to.
`GnuEmacs`	`BOOL`	Both	If `true`, format error output for GNU Emacs
`FixUrl`	`BOOL`	Both	Applies URI encoding if necessary.
`BodyOnly`	`BOOL`	Both	Output BODY content only.
`HideComments`	`BOOL`	Both	Hides all (real) comments in output.
`DoctypeMode`	`EDoctypeModes`	Both	Sets the doctype mode for output.

Using the Code

I have used the Test.htm (included with the project) to test EfTidyNet responses. Here is what Test.htm contains:

<html>
    <head><title>tidy Library</title></head>
    <body>
      <blockquote>
        <p> </p> --(1)

        <p><fontsize="5"color=
      "#FF00FF">TidyLibrary</font></p>
      </blockquote>
      <P><p><fontsize="5"color="#FF00FF"></font></p>

      <table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"
         style="border-collapse: collapse"
         bordercolor="#111111" width="100%" id="AutoNumber1">

       <tr>
         <td width="50%" style="border-left-style: solid;
           border-left-width: 1; border-right-style: none;
           border-right-width: medium; border-top-style: solid;
           border-top-width: 1; border-bottom-style:
           none; border-bottom-width: medium"> --(2)
         </td>
         <td width="50%" style="border-left-style: none;
           border-left-width: medium; border-right-style:solid;
           border-right-width: 1; border-top-style: solid;
           border-top-width: 1;border-bottom-style: none;
           border-bottom-width: medium">

         </td>
       </tr>
      </table>
      <b>Tidy  --- (3)
      </h1> <tidy> ---(4)

    </body>
</html>

In test.htm, I have added the following mistakes:

A dummy <Tidy> tag at (4)
Missing <h1> tag at (4)
Empty para <p> tag (1)
Un-closed <b> tag at (3)

Test Case # 1 using TidyNet

First, create an object of our component. Here is a listing of how to achieve that:

TidyNet objTidyNet = new TidyNet();

Now, clean the test.htm file using this object. The code listing for that is given below:

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
 int iTotalWarn = 0,iTotalErrs = 0;
 String SReturnData ="";
 String SError = "";

 TidyNet objTidyNet = new TidyNet();
 objTidyNet.TidyFiletoMem("C:\\MyProjects\\Test\\hello.htm",
   ref SReturnData);

 objTidyNet.TotalWarnings(ref iTotalWarn);
 SError = objTidyNet.ErrorWarning();
 objTidyNet.TotalErrors(ref iTotalErrs);
}

And here is the result produced by Tidy listing showing what test1.htm (created by EfTidyNet) contains:

<html>
<head>
 <meta name="generator"
       content="HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 1st September 2004),
                see www.w3.org">
    <title>tidy Library</title>

</head>
<body>
    <blockquote>
        <p> </p>
        <p><font size="5" color="#FF00FF">Tidy Library</font>

        </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p><font size="5" color= "#FF00FF"> </font></p>

    <table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"
         style= "border-collapse: collapse" bordercolor="#111111"

         width="100%" id= "AutoNumber1">
     <tr>
        <td width="50%" style= "border-left-style: solid;
           border-left-width: 1; border-right-style: none;
           border-right-width: medium; border-top-style: solid;
           border-top-width: 1; border-bottom-style: none;
           border-bottom-width: medium">

        </td>
        <td width="50%"
           style= "border-left-style: none;border-left-width: medium;
           border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1;
           border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;
           border-bottom-style: none;border-bottom-width: medium">
        </td>
     </tr>

    </table>
    <b>Tidy</b> --(1)
</body>
</html>

If you see the above cleaned HTML page - the dummy <tidy> tag and the </h1> have been removed near (1), and </b> is added after Tidy at (1).

Here is a summary of the errors/warnings produced by EfTidyNet, showing you the details of each action it has performed:

line 1 column 1   - Warning: missing <!DOCTYPE> declaration
line 22 column 10 - Warning: discarding unexpected </h1>
line 23 column 1  - Error: <tidy> is not recognized!
line 23 column 1  - Warning: discarding unexpected <tidy>

line 15 column 1  - Warning: <table> proprietary attribute
                    "bordercolor"
line 15 column 1  - Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
Info: Document content looks like HTML Proprietary

5 warnings, 1 error were found!

Test Case # 2 using TidyNet with TidyNetOpt

Now, apply some options to Test.htm to get the custom output. So, I am using these options:

Clean =TRUE (to make separate class for style)
DoctypeMode = DoctypeUser (to enable display string)
Doctype = "Ef Tidy library" (display string)
OutputType = XhtmlOut (output type)
NewInlineTags = "tidy" (Make our dummy <tidy> tag legal)

Here is the code listing to achieve the above:

private void TestCase2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  int iTotalWarn = 0, iTotalErrs = 0;
  String SReturnData = "";
  String SError = "";

  TidyNet objTidyNet = new TidyNet();

  objTidyNet.Option.Clean(true);
  objTidyNet.Option.NewInlineTags("tidy");
  objTidyNet.Option.OutputType(EfTidyNet.EfTidyOpt.EOutputType.XhtmlOut);
  objTidyNet.Option.DoctypeMode(EfTidyNet.EfTidyOpt.EDoctypeModes.DoctypeUser);
  objTidyNet.Option.Doctype("Ef Tidy Library");

  objTidyNet.TidyFiletoMem("C:\\MyProjects\\Test\\hello.htm", ref SReturnData);
  objTidyNet.TotalWarnings(ref iTotalWarn);
  SError = objTidyNet.ErrorWarning();
  objTidyNet.TotalErrors(ref iTotalErrs);
}

And here is the result produced by Tidy listing showing what test1.htm (created by EfTidyNet) contains after applying our options:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "Ef Tidy library" ""> --(1)

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  <head>
  <meta name="generator"

    content="HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 1st September 2004),
            see www.w3.org" />

  <title>tidy Library</title>
  <style type="text/css">  --(2)

     /*<![CDATA[*/
       table.c4 {border-collapse: collapse}
       td.c3 {border-left-style: none;
          border-left-width: medium; border-right-style: solid;
          border-right-width: 1; border-top-style: solid;
          border-top-width: 1;
          border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: medium}
       td.c2 {border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1;
          border-right-style: none;
          border-right-width: medium; border-top-style: solid;
          border-top-width: 1;
          border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: medium}
       h2.c1 {color: #FF00FF}
     /*]]>*/
  </style>

  </head>
  <body>
    <blockquote>
      <p> </p>

      <h2 class="c1">Tidy Library</h2>

    </blockquote>
    <h2 class="c1">
    </h2>
    <table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="c4"

           bordercolor="#111111" width="100%" id="AutoNumber1">
        <tr>
            <td width="50%" class="c2"> </td> ----(3)

            <td width="50%" class="c3"> </td>
        </tr>
    </table>
    <b>Tidy <tidy></tidy></b> ----(4)

  </body>
</html>

Now, let us see what Tidy cleans for us:

In (1), our custom string "Ef Tidy Library" is visible.
In (2) and (3), the styles are cleaned and a class is created for that.
In (4), our <Tidy> tag gets legal, though it does nothing in the actual HTML page.

Here is a summary of all the errors/warnings:

line 1 column 1  - Warning: missing <!DOCTYPE> declaration
line 22 column 10- Warning: discarding unexpected </h1>
line 23 column 1 - Warning: <tidy> is not approved by W3C
line 23 column 1 - Warning: missing </tidy> before </body>

line 22 column 2 - Warning: missing </b> before </body>

line 15 column 1 - Warning: <table> proprietary attribute
                   "bordercolor"
line 15 column 1 - Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
Info: Document content looks like HTML Proprietary

7 warnings, 0 errors were found!

Here, all I have given is a small overview of the Tidy library and EfTidyCom. For more information on the Tidy library, visit Tidy home page.

Author Comment

I know there is much scope for improvement in this component. I promise these improvements will be there in the next version/update of the library. If you encounter any bugs, please intimate so that I could improve the code further.

Files Listed with the Project

EfTidy Version 1.0.2.0

Source zip contains:

`TidyLib` (original `Tidy` library) 2009 March release source code

`EfTidyNet` source code with multilingual support
Source code updated for Visual Studio 2010

Project zip contains:

Release version of `EfTidyNet` Library

C# test project (with source)

Test.htm

EfTidy Version 1.0.1.3

Source zip contains:

`TidyLib` (original `Tidy` library) 2009 March release source code

`EfTidyNet` source code with multilanguage support

Project zip contains:

Release version of `EfTidyNet` Library

C# test project (with source)

Test.htm

EfTidy Version 1.0.1.2 (Latest)

Source zip contains:
- TidyLib (original Tidy library) 2008 release source code
- EfTidyNet source code with multilanguage support
- Thanks to Wingogo and megger83 for bug reporting!
Project zip contains:
- Release version of EfTidyNet Library

EfTidy Version 1.0.1.1

Source zip contains:
- TidyLib (original Tidy library) 2008 release source code
- EfTidyNet source code with multilanguage support
- EfTidyNetx64 version by Spike!
Project zip contains:
- Release version of EfTidyNet Library
- C# test project (with source)
- Test.htm

EfTidy Version 1.0

Source zip contains:
- TidyLib (original Tidy library) source code
- EfTidyNet source code
Project zip contains:
- Release version of EfTidyNet library
- C# Test project (with source)
- Test.htm

Special Thanks

Mr. Saurabh Gupta [Director Efextra eSolutions Pvt. Ltd.]
Mr Spike! for creating X64 version of EfTidyNet
Tidy SourceForge group for Tidy library

Update History

06 September 2013: EfTidyNet version 1.0.2.0
20 July, 2009: EfTidyNet version 1.0.1.3
23^rd June, 2008: EfTidyNet version 1.0.1.2
5^th March, 2008: EfTidyNet version 1.0.1.1
15^th February, 2008: EfTidyNet version 1.0