HTML::HeadParser(3)

🌸 NAME 🌸

Okay bestie, welcome to the HTML::HeadParser(3) page — it's giving User Contributed Perl Documentation energy ✨. This module is literally HTML::HeadParser, and its whole personality is parsing the <HEAD> section of a HTML document. Periodt.

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

Here's the code vibe, bestie:

require HTML::HeadParser;
$p = HTML::HeadParser->new;
$p->parse($text) and  print "not finished";

$p->header('Title')          # to access <title>....</title>
$p->header('Content-Base')   # to access <base href="http://...">
$p->header('Foo')            # to access <meta http-equiv="Foo" content="...">
$p->header('X-Meta-Author')  # to access <meta name="author" content="...">
$p->header('X-Meta-Charset') # to access <meta charset="...">

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

So HTML::HeadParser is a specialized (and lightweight) HTML::Parser that will only parse the <HEAD>...</HEAD> section of an HTML document. It's very "I have one job and I'm slaying it" 💅.

The parse() method will return a FALSE value as soon as some <BODY> element or body text are found, and it should not be called again after this. Like, once it hits body territory, it's done — do not keep calling it, fr fr.

⚠️ Note that HTML::HeadParser might get confused if raw undecoded UTF-8 is passed to the parse() method. Make sure the strings are properly decoded before passing them on. 💀

HTML::HeadParser keeps a reference to a header object, and the parser will update this header object as the various elements of the <HEAD> section of the HTML document are recognized. The following header fields are affected:

• Content-Base — initialized from the <base href="..."> element.
• Title — initialized from the <title>...</title> element.
• Isindex — added if there is a <isindex> element in the <head>. The header value is initialized from the prompt attribute if it is present. If no prompt attribute is given it will have '?' as the value.
• X-Meta-Foo — all <meta> elements containing a "name" attribute will result in headers using the prefix "X-Meta-" appended with the value of the "name" attribute as the name of the header, and the value of the "content" attribute as the pushed header value.
  • <meta> elements containing a "http-equiv" attribute will result in headers as in above, but without the "X-Meta-" prefix in the header name.
  • <meta> elements containing a "charset" attribute will result in an "X-Meta-Charset" header, using the value of the "charset" attribute as the pushed header value.
  • The ':' character can't be represented in header field names, so if the meta element contains this char it's substituted with '-' before forming the field name.

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🧚 METHODS 🧚

The following methods (in addition to those provided by the superclass) are available:

• $hp = HTML::HeadParser->new and $hp = HTML::HeadParser->new( $header ) — the object constructor. The optional $header argument should be a reference to an object that implement the header() and push_header() methods as defined by the HTTP::Headers class. Normally it will be of some class that is a or delegates to the HTTP::Headers class.

If no $header is given HTML::HeadParser will create an HTTP::Headers object by itself (initially empty). Cute, self-sufficient, iconic.

• $hp->header; — returns a reference to the header object.
• $hp->header( $key ) — returns a header value. It is just a shorter way to write $hp->header->header($key).

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🌈 EXAMPLE 🌈

Bestie, here's the example in all its glory:

$h = HTTP::Headers->new;
$p = HTML::HeadParser->new($h);
$p->parse(<<EOT);
<title>Stupid example</title>
<base href="http://www.linpro.no/lwp/">
Normal text starts here.
EOT
undef $p;
print $h->title;   # should print "Stupid example"

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• HTML::Parser, HTTP::Headers

The HTTP::Headers class is distributed as part of the libwww-perl package. If you don't have that distribution installed you need to provide the $header argument to the HTML::HeadParser constructor with your own object that implements the documented protocol. No cap, that's the dealio.

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👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

Copyright 1996-2001 Gisle Aas. All rights reserved.

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

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💖 That's the whole page, bestie! Source/version tea: perl v5.42.0, dated 2026-06-08, and this iconic page is HTML::HeadParser(3). Go parse that <HEAD> section and slay! 🫶✨