Working with the DOM and GM_xmlhttpRequest

[bonusball]

Hello,

I'm working on a Greasemonkey script using the New York Times comments API. One of the things I want to do is parse the xml with GM_xmlhttpRequest.

Here's an example of what I'm pulling out:
http://api.nytimes.com/svc/community/v2/comments/url/exact-match.xml?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdotearth.blogs.nytimes.com%2F2008%2F12%2F16%2Fa-cooler-year-on-a-warming-planet%2F&api-key=mschwjy9jpmur8f98nerbjtv

and here is my js:
// set up 2 variables
var relatedDiv, commentPreview;
// define relatedDiv
relatedDiv = document.getElementById('related-content');
if (relatedDiv) {
// fetch and display feed
GM_xmlhttpRequest({
method: 'GET',
//url: 'http://greaseblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml',
url: 'http://api.nytimes.com/svc/community/v2/comments/url/exact-match.xml?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdotearth.blogs.nytimes.com%2F2008%2F12%2F16%2Fa-cooler-year-on-a-warming-planet%2F&api-key=mschwjy9jpmur8f98nerbjtv',
headers: {
'User-agent': 'Mozilla/4.0 (compatible) Greasemonkey/0.3',
'Accept': 'application/atom+xml,application/xml,text/xml',
},
onload: function(responseDetails) {
var parser = new DOMParser();
var dom = parser.parseFromString(responseDetails.responseText,
"application/xml");
// go thru comment nodes
var entries = dom.getElementsByTagName('comment');
var cBody;
for (var i = 0; i < entries.length; i++) {
cBody = entries[i].getElementsByTagName('commentBody')[0].textContent;
cAuthor = entries[i].getElementsByTagName('display_name')[0].textContent;
cAuthorLoc = entries[i].getElementsByTagName('location')[0].textContent;
cReccomendations = entries[i].getElementsByTagName('recommendations')[0].textContent;
cSequence = entries[i].getElementsByTagName('commentSequence')[0].textContent;
// create the div
commentPreview = document.createElement("div");
commentPreview.innerHTML = '<p> ' +
cSequence + '/' + cTotal + cBody +
'<br>posted by: ' + cAuthor + ', '+ cAuthorLoc +'</a><br>'
+ cReccomendations +' recommendations</p>';
// write out my div before the related posts
relatedDiv.parentNode.insertBefore(commentPreview, relatedDiv);
}
}
});
}

This works fine for all comments, I can pull out authors, locations, etc. Where it breaks down is in responses, in the xml like this:

<comment>
<commentSequence>19</commentSequence>
<commentTitle/>
<commentBody>
Mr. Revkin ... It's about time the NYT editorial board directed it's writers to "report" the facts, rather than perpetuating this outrageous climate change lie.<br /><br />“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it”<br />
</commentBody>
<createDate>1229451232</createDate>
<updateDate>1229451848</updateDate>
<approveDate>1229451848</approveDate>
<recommendations>17</recommendations>
<replies>
<comments>
<comment>
<commentSequence>1</commentSequence>
<commentTitle/>
<commentBody>
You've got to be more specific here. Is the "lie" that the world is warming, that people are contributing, that it's dangerous, or ...? I think you'll find my coverage is held out on all "sides" to be fair and accurate, both in describing what science has revealed, and what it hasn't figured out yet.
</commentBody>
<approveDate>1229451848</approveDate>
<recommendations>0</recommendations>
<replies/>
<editorsSelection>N</editorsSelection>
<display_name>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/andrew_c_revkin/index.html" target="_blank">Andy Revkin</a
</display_name>
<location>Garrison, NY</location>
<userComments>
api.nytimes.com/svc/community/v2/comments/user/id/2781029.xml
</userComments>
</comment>
</comments>
</replies>
<editorsSelection>N</editorsSelection>
<display_name>Rich Pletcher</display_name>
<location>Fuquay Varina, NC</location>
<userComments>
api.nytimes.com/svc/community/v2/comments/user/id/48104118.xml
</userComments>
</comment>

If I request the node named display_name it will take it from any point in the hierarchy, when I don't want to go that deep. But as far as I can find in the documentation, there is no way to limit the depth that GM_xmlhttpRequest can go.

Am I missing something? How can I tell the script to choose the display_name from the lowest hierarchy before moving into the responses and then grabbing that one too?

Simple to do in xsl, but is there a mechanism for it here?

Thanks for any help.

[rnd me]

this is either invalid XML, or a cut-off version.
thus there is not enough information to tell.

what i can say is that you can use getElementsByTagName on tags as well as whole documents.

without knowing the structure of the xml, something like

entries[i].getElementsByTagName('recommendations')[0].getElementsByTagName('display_name')[0].textContent;

should give you what you want. ask for the parent tag, then the "display_name" tag.



also don't forget that you can easily use xsl.
run the transform in greasemonkey and .innerHTML the result into your document...

[bonusball]

Yes, this is a snippet.

But thanks rnd me, I didn't know I could use getElementsByTagName that way. In the meantime I decided to go the xpath route.