NAME

       HTMLtable - tied hash and DBI/SQL access to HTML tables

SYNOPSIS

        use AnyData;
        my $table = adHash( 'HTMLtable', $filename );
        while (my $row = each %$table) {
           print $row->{name},"\n" if $row->{country} =~ /us|mx|ca/;
        }
        # ... other tied hash operations

        OR

        use DBI
        my $dbh = DBI->connect('dbi:AnyData:');
        $dbh->func('table1','HTMLtable', $filename,'ad_catalog');
        my $hits = $dbh->selectall_arrayref( qq{
            SELECT name FROM table1 WHERE country = 'us'
        });
        # ... other DBI/SQL operations

DESCRIPTION

       This module allows one to treat the data contained in an HTML table as a tied hash (using
       AnyData.pm) or as a DBI/SQL accessible database (using DBD::AnyData.pm).  Both the
       tiedhash and DBI interfaces allow one to read, modify, and create HTML tables from perl
       data or from local or remote files.

       The module requires that CGI, HTML::Parser and HTML::TableExtract are installed.

       When reading the HTML table, this module is essentially just a pass through to Matt Sisk's
       excellent HTML::TableExtract module.

       If no flags are specified in the adTie() or ad_catalog() calls, then TableExtract is
       called with depth=0 and count=0, in other words it finds the first row of the first table
       and treats that as the column names for the entire table.  If a flag for 'cols' (column
       names) is specified in the adTie() or ad_catalog() calls, that list of column names is
       passed to TableExtract as a headers parameter.  If the user specifies flags for headers,
       depth, or count, those are passed directly to TableExtract.

       When exporting to an HTMLtable, you may pass flags to specify properties
        of the whole table (table_flags), the top row containing the column names
        (top_row_flags), and the data rows (data_row_flags).  These flags follow
        the syntax of CGI.pm table constructors, e.g.:

        print adExport( $table, 'HTMLtable', {
            table_flags    => {Border=>3,bgColor=>'blue'};
            top_row_flags  => {bgColor=>'red'};
            data_row_flags => {valign='top'};
        });

        The table_flags will default to {Border=>1,bgColor=>'white'} if none
        are specified.

        The top_row_flags will default to {bgColor=>'#c0c0c0'} if none are
        specified;

        The data_row_flags will be empty if none are specified.

        In other words, if no flags are specified the table will print out with
        a border of 1, the column headings in gray, and the data rows in white.

        CAUTION: This module will *not* preserve anything in the html file except
        the selected table so if your file contains more than the selected table,
        you will want to use adTie() or $dbh->func(...,'ad_import') to read the
       table and then adExport() or $dbh->func(...,'ad_export') to write
        the table to a different file.  When using the HTMLtable format, this is the
        only way to preserve changes to the data, the adTie() command will *not*
        write to a file.

AUTHOR & COPYRIGHT

       copyright 2000, Jeff Zucker <jeff@vpservices.com> all rights reserved