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

# [NAME](#NAME)

HTML::HeadParser - Parse <HEAD> section of a HTML document

# [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS)

```
 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="...">
```

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

The "HTML::HeadParser" is a specialized (and lightweight) "HTML::Parser" that will only parse the &lt;HEAD&gt;...&lt;/HEAD&gt; section of an HTML document. The **parse()** method will return a FALSE value as soon as some &lt;BODY&gt; element or body text are found, and should not be called again after this.

Note that the "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.

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

[Content-Base:](#Content)

The *Content-Base* header is initialized from the &lt;base href="..."&gt; element.

[Title:](#Title:)

The *Title* header is initialized from the &lt;title&gt;...&lt;/title&gt; element.

[Isindex:](#Isindex:)

The *Isindex* header will be added if there is a &lt;isindex&gt; element in the &lt;head&gt;. 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:](#X)

All &lt;meta&gt; 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.

&lt;meta&gt; elements containing a "http-equiv" attribute will result in headers as in above, but without the "X-Meta-" prefix in the header name.

&lt;meta&gt; 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.

# [METHODS](#METHODS)

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

$hp = HTML::HeadParser-&gt;new

$hp = HTML::HeadParser-&gt;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).

$hp-&gt;header;

Returns a reference to the header object.

$hp-&gt;header( $key )

Returns a header value. It is just a shorter way to write "$hp-&gt;header-&gt;header($key)".

# [EXAMPLE](#EXAMPLE)

```
 $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"
```

# [SEE ALSO](#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.

# [COPYRIGHT](#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.

2026-09-20 perl v5.44.0

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Document: HTML::HeadParser(3pm) from perl-html-parser 3.86-r0 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://github.com/libwww-perl/HTML-Parser.git