Nokogiri CSS method to 2D array - ruby

Question

I'm attempting to create a simple web scraper, but I'm having some trouble.
The structure of the website is like this:
<tr>
<td class="gametime">Sun 01-18-15 09:10 PM</td>
<td class="gamehome">CYCLONES</td>
<td>TIGERS</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="gametime">Sun 01-25-15 06:40 PM</td>
<td class="gamehome">LIONS</td>
<td>CYCLONES</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="gametime">Sun 02-01-15 12:50 PM</td>
<td class="gamehome">CYCLONES</td>
<td>CLAY</td>
</tr>
What I currently have is this:
games = page.css("td[class='gametime']").map{|game| game.parent.css("a").text}
This returns an array of strings with three elements (in this example). But what I am attempting to get is a 2D array, where, for example:
games[0][0] #=> Sun 01-18-15 09:10 PM
games[0][1] #=> CYCLONES
games[0][2] #=> TIGERS
I do not want this (what I currently am getting):
games[0] #=> Sun 01-18-15 09:10 PMCYCLONESTIGERS
What is the best approach to achieve this?

Answer 1

You were close:
games = page.css("td.gametime").map { |i| i.parent.css("a").map { |j| j.text } }
For each td.gametime, go to its parent and grab all a tags then map them to their text. This will give you an array of three values for each game, and an array of arrays for the page.

Answer 2

I don't think text is going to make an array for you. I think you'll need to nest map statements:
games = page.css("td[class='gametime']").map{|game| game.parent.css("a").map(&:text)}

Answer 3

I'd do it like this:
require 'nokogiri'
doc = Nokogiri::HTML(<<EOT)
<tr>
<td class="gametime">Sun 01-18-15 09:10 PM</td>
<td class="gamehome">CYCLONES</td>
<td>TIGERS</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="gametime">Sun 01-25-15 06:40 PM</td>
<td class="gamehome">LIONS</td>
<td>CYCLONES</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="gametime">Sun 02-01-15 12:50 PM</td>
<td class="gamehome">CYCLONES</td>
<td>CLAY</td>
</tr>
EOT
Here's the code:
games = doc.search('tr').map{ |tr| tr.search('td').map(&:text) }
# => [["Sun 01-18-15 09:10 PM", "CYCLONES", "TIGERS"],
# ["Sun 01-25-15 06:40 PM", "LIONS", "CYCLONES"],
# ["Sun 02-01-15 12:50 PM", "CYCLONES", "CLAY"]]
games[0][0] # => "Sun 01-18-15 09:10 PM"
games[0][1] # => "CYCLONES"
games[0][2] # => "TIGERS"
It isn't necessary to grab the inner tags inside the <td> tags for this HTML. Sometimes there's additional text to be ignored, which would make it necessary, but since it's simple, the code can be simple. text for the <td> nodes will return the text nodes embedded inside them.
I seriously doubt the HTML they're serving is that plain, and without a bit more detail I can't give a more accurate answer. (It behooves/benefits you to provide adequately detailed and accurate input.) The general idea though, is to find the table containing the rows you want, then drill down:
require 'nokogiri'
doc = Nokogiri::HTML(<<EOT)
<table class="foo">
<tr>
<td class="gametime">Sun 01-18-15 09:10 PM</td>
<td class="gamehome">CYCLONES</td>
<td>TIGERS</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="gametime">Sun 01-25-15 06:40 PM</td>
<td class="gamehome">LIONS</td>
<td>CYCLONES</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="gametime">Sun 02-01-15 12:50 PM</td>
<td class="gamehome">CYCLONES</td>
<td>CLAY</td>
</tr>
</table>
<table class="bar">
</table>
EOT
And the modified code:
games = doc.search('table.foo tr').map{ |tr| tr.search('td').map(&:text) }
# => [["Sun 01-18-15 09:10 PM", "CYCLONES", "TIGERS"],
# ["Sun 01-25-15 06:40 PM", "LIONS", "CYCLONES"],
# ["Sun 02-01-15 12:50 PM", "CYCLONES", "CLAY"]]
games[0][0] # => "Sun 01-18-15 09:10 PM"
games[0][1] # => "CYCLONES"
games[0][2] # => "TIGERS"