string-fix-broken-named-entities^7.0.3

Installation

Quick Take

Examples

• Sift raw ampersands in a string from broken character references

Purpose

This program detects and fixes broken named HTML entities (like  ). The algorithm is Levenshtein distance, for smaller entities, we match by distance 1, for longer entities we allow distance 2.

In practice, this means we can catch errors like: &nbp; (mistyped  ).

This program also works as a healthy entities catcher — broken entities are fed to one callback (opts.cb), healthy entities are fed to another callback (opts.entityCatcherCb).

There is a decoding function; the algorithm is aware of numeric HTML entities as well.

API — fixEnt()

The main function fixEnt() is imported like this:

It’s a function which takes two input arguments:

The Optional Options Object has the following shape:

Function will return ranges (Ranges type below) describing proposed fixes — a null (theoretically possible) or array of one or more range arrays:

For example, four fixed nbsp’s:

[
  [6, 11, " "],
  [11, 18, " "],
  [27, 34, " "],
  [34, 41, " "],
];

The output can be further processed by other range libraries: cropping, sorting, merging can be done on range arrays, instead of mutating the input string each time.

opts.decode

If you set opts.decode and there are healthy encoded entities, those will not be decoded. Only if there are broken entities, those will be set in ranges as decoded values. If you want full decoding, consider filtering the input with a dedicated decoding library right after filtering using this library.

For example, you’d first filter the string using this library, then you’d filter the same input skipping already recorded ranges, using ranges-ent-decode. Then you’d merge the ranges.

For example:

import { fixEnt } from "string-fix-broken-named-entities";
const result = fixEnt("zz nbsp;zz nbsp;", { decode: true });
console.log(JSON.stringify(result, null, 4));
// => [[3, 8, "\xA0"], [11, 16, "\xA0"]]

opts.cb

So, normally, the output of this library is an array of zero or more arrays (each meaning string index ranges), for example:

[
  [1, 2],
  [3, 4]
]

Above means, delete the string from index 1 to 2 and from 3 to 4.

However, for example, in emlint, we need slightly different format, not only ranges but also issue titles:

[
  {
    "name": "tag-generic-error",
    "position": [[1, 2]]
  },
  {
    "name": "tag-generic-error",
    "position": [[3, 4]]
  }
]

Callback function via opts.cb allows you to change the output of this library.

The concept is, you pass a function in options object’s key cb. That function will receive a plain object with all “ingredients” under various keys. Whatever you return, will be pushed into a results array. For each result application is about to push, it will call your function with findings, all neatly put in the plain object.

For example, to solve the example above, we would do:

import { fixEnt } from "string-fix-broken-named-entities";
const res = fixEnt("zzznbsp;zzznbsp;", {
  cb: (oodles) => {
    // "oodles" or whatever you name it, is a plain object.
    // Grab any content from any of its keys, for example:
    // {
    //   ruleName: "missing semicolon on π (don't confuse with ϖ)",
    //   entityName: "pi",
    //   rangeFrom: 3,
    //   rangeTo: 4,
    //   rangeValEncoded: "π",
    //   rangeValDecoded: "\u03C0"
    // }
    return {
      name: oodles.ruleName,
      position:
        oodles.rangeValEncoded != null
          ? [oodles.rangeFrom, oodles.rangeTo, oodles.rangeValEncoded]
          : [oodles.rangeFrom, oodles.rangeTo],
    };
  },
});
console.log(JSON.stringify(res, null, 4));
// => [
//      {
//        name: "malformed  ",
//        position: [3, 8, " "]
//      },
//      {
//        name: "malformed  ",
//        position: [11, 16, " "]
//      }
//    ]

Here’s the detailed description of all the keys, values and their types:

opts.decode in relation to opts.cb

Even though it might seem that when a callback is used, opts.decode does not matter (because we serve both encoded and decoded values in a callback), but it does matter.

For example, consider this case, where we have non-breaking spaces without semicolons:

&nbsp,&nbsp,&nbsp

Since we give user an option to choose between raw and encoded values, result can come in two ways:

When decoded entities are requested, we replace ranges [0, 5], [6, 11] and [12, 17]:

// ranges:
[
  [0, 5, "\xA0"],
  [6, 11, "\xA0"],
  [12, 17, "\xA0"],
];

But, when encoded entities are requested, it’s just a matter of sticking in the missing semicolon, at indexes 5, 11 and 17:

// ranges:
[
  [5, 5, ";"],
  [11, 11, ";"],
  [17, 17, ";"],
];

opts.entityCatcherCb

If broken entities are pinged to opts.cb() callback, all healthy entities are pinged to opts.entityCatcherCb. It’s either one or another:

const inp1 = "y   z &nsp;";
const gatheredEntityRanges = [];
fix(inp1, {
  entityCatcherCb: (from, to) => gatheredEntityRanges.push([from, to]),
});
console.log(
  `${`\u001b[${33}m${`gatheredEntityRanges`}\u001b[${39}m`} = ${JSON.stringify(
    gatheredEntityRanges,
    null,
    4
  )}`
);
// => [[2, 8]]

opts.textAmpersandCatcherCb

Sometimes input string can contain ampersands-as-text and ampersands-as-part-of-entities.

For example, consider a string abc& &xyz. What do you see here? There’s one named HTML entity,  , surrounded by two raw text ampersands. This callback, opts.textAmpersandCatcherCb can be used to catch raw ampersands, probably with aim to HTML-encode them. Specifically, this option would call your function twice, with numbers 3 and 10, positions of raw ampersands.

See the supplied example where broken entity is fixed and raw text ampersands are encoded, all within the same string, all done using this program.

opts.progressFn

In web worker setups, a worker can return “in progress” values. When we put this package into a web worker, this callback function under opts.progress will be called with a string containing a natural number, showing the percentage of the work done so far.

It’s hard to show a minimal worker application here but at least here’s how the pinging progress works from the side of this npm package:

// let's define a variable on a higher scope:
let count = 0;

// call application as normal, pass opts.progressFn:
const result = fixEnt(
  "text &ang text&ang text text &ang text&ang text text &ang text&ang text",
  {
    progressFn: (percentageDone) => {
      // console.log(`percentageDone = ${percentageDone}`);
      count++;
    },
  }
);
// each time percentage is reported, "count" is incremented

// now imagine if instead of incrementing the count, we pinged the
// value out of the worker

API — version

You can import version:

Changelog