node.js - Parsing a specific table in a html page that has multiple tables using cheerio

Question

Here is my sample html.

<table class = "one">
  <thead>..</thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>"Element 1<td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>
<table class = "one">
  <thead>..</thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>"Element 2<td>
      <td>"Element 3<td>          
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

I am using cheerio to parse through the tables but unfortunately, I am not able to select a specific table as the tables do not have any ids or belong to different classes. The below code pulls all the rows from both the tables. I had to compare the output with known elements (for example "element2") to fix up an index that I can use to identify tables. But is there any better way using cheerio to pick up the first table on the page or just the second table on the page?

var $ = cheerio.load(sampleHTML);
$('table tr').each(function (i, element) { ..}

Have you tried the nth selector: 'table:nth-child(2) tr' ? This example will select the tr's from the second table. More info: w3schools.com/jquery/sel_nthchild.asp — dime2lo
– dime2lo, Commented Aug 10, 2017 at 2:37

bowheart · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-10 03:28:51Z

4

Yes, there are multiple methods:

1) Use a :first-of-type, :last-of-type, :nth-of-type(n), :first-child, :last-child, or nth-child(n) selector. Some examples:

// to select rows in table 1:
$('table:first-of-type tr')
$('table:nth-child(1) tr')

// to select rows in table 2:
$('table:nth-of-type(2) tr')
$('table:last-child tr')

2) Use the built-in .first(), .last(), or .eq(n) filtering methods (or .filter() itself). With these, you'd select all tables, filter down to the table you want, then find all trs in that table.

// to select rows in table 1:
$('table').first().find('tr')
$('table').eq(0).find('tr')

// to select rows in table 2:
$('table').last().find('tr')
$('table').filter(i => i === 1).find('tr')

answered Aug 10, 2017 at 3:28

bowheart

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1 Comment

intrepid_atom Over a year ago

Perfect! Tried the second method of filtering. Worked like a charm. Thanks

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