Using chhttp to get data off a page.

Is there a way to capture everything between the two span classes into two variables? I don't need the time span.

 

By @ghanna1

Sure.

I would do it simply, using XML. It would go like in this fully worked out example:

<cfsavecontent variable="songsList">
	<li><span class="song-time">1:49 PM</span>&nbsp;<span class="song-title">Wanted Dead Or Alive</span>—<span class="song-artist">Bon Jovi</span></li>
    <li><span class="song-time">2:48 PM</span>&nbsp;<span class="song-title">Yesterday</span>—<span class="song-artist">Beatles</span></li>
    <li><span class="song-time">3:47 PM</span>&nbsp;<span class="song-title">Dr. Beat</span>—<span class="song-artist">Miami Sound Machine</span></li>
    <li><span class="song-time">4:46 PM</span>&nbsp;<span class="song-title">Down Under</span>—<span class="song-artist">Men at Work</span></li>
</cfsavecontent>

<!--- Replace the characters &nbsp; and — occurring between </span> and <span --->
<cfset songsList=REreplaceNoCase(songsList, "</span>&nbsp;<span|</span>—<span","</span><span","all")>

<!--- Create an XML from the list --->
<cfxml variable="songsXML" >
	<songs>
		<cfoutput>#songsList#</cfoutput>
	</songs>
</cfxml>

<!--- Loop through the li elements, picking out the respective span xmlTexts --->
<cfloop from="1" to="#structcount(songsxml.songs)#" index="songNumber">
	<p>
	<cfoutput>
    	Song Number: #songNumber# <br>
		Song Title: #songsxml.songs.li[songNumber].span[2].xmlText# <br>
		Song Artist: #songsxml.songs.li[songNumber].span[3].xmlText# <br>
    </cfoutput>
	</p>
</cfloop>

Yes, Gary, there are many ways.

One (which is rather tedious, but totally doable) is to simply treat each line as a string, and use cfml string functions to find and extract what you want, optionally using regular expressions. The cfml reference manual has a section on string functions:

https://helpx.adobe.com/coldfusion/cfml-reference/coldfusion-functions/functions-by-category/string-functions.html

A far more powerful way is to treat each line as the html that it is, and use the free jsoup Java library to easily pull out the values within those spans. There have been over the years various resources showing how to use jsoup within cfml, such as:

• https://medium.com/@robertz/using-coldfusion-and-jsoup-to-parse-page-meta-data-68da8083ce9
• https://gist.github.com/JamoCA/11388159
• https://www.raymondcamden.com/2012/04/06/jsoup-adds-jQuerylike-parsing-in-Java
• https://www.bennadel.com/blog/2358-parsing-traversing-and-mutating-html-with-coldfusion-and-jsoup.htm
• https://www.bennadel.com/blog/4201-using-jsoup-to-clean-up-and-normalize-html-in-coldfusion-2021.htm
• And others 

While some of those may be quite dated, the concepts and approach remain the same, as does even some of the code.

And sometimes they may show the html being obtained via a cfhttp like you're doing, or via a jsoup method call. Either way, the processing of the result is what matters and is shown being done in cfml--which may look a lot like Java but is really just cfml calling on Java methods and properties of the jsoup library.  (In cf2021, you can even just run Java within cfml.) 

With those examples, I think you could readily get what you want. Someone else may chime in with the EXACT cfml to call the SPECIFIC methods to get the results you need for you PARTICULAR example. I've opted here to go for the "teach a man to fish" approach, mostly because I'm writing this on a phone, but also as much because someone else may find this and I wanted to share the resources and approach. Hopes it helps. 🙂