readHTMLTable collapsing span elements - html

Question

I am trying to fetch game data from this site and using the XML package to do so:
library(XML)
url <- 'http://scores.nbcsports.msnbc.com/cbk/teamstats.asp?team=1115&report=schedule'
raw.schedule <- readHTMLTable(url, which=2)
The problem is that all of the <span> elements in the HTML date column are collapsing together.
R> raw.schedule$Date[1]
[1] "11/142:30 PM PT3:30 PM MT4:30 PM CT5:30 PM ET10:30 PM GMT6:30 PM 北京时间3:30 PM MST5:30 PM EST"
Ideally I would like to have just the date element by itself such as:
R> raw.schedule$Date[1]
[1] "11/14"
I have tried rvest package but am having the same issue. Is it possible to read this table and keep the <span> elements separated, or just select the first element?

Answer 1

Define a custom function to parse the cells of the table:
myFun <- function(x){
if(length(y <- getNodeSet(x, "./span[#class=\"shsGameDate\"]")) > 0){
# date column
return(xmlValue(y[[1]]))
}
if(length(y <- getNodeSet(x, "./span[#class=\"shsTimezone shsETZone\"]")) > 0){
# time column
return(xmlValue(y[[1]]))
}
xmlValue(x, encoding = "UTF-8")
}
You can now call the readHTMLTable function using your custom function to parse the cells:
library(XML)
url <- 'http://scores.nbcsports.msnbc.com/cbk/teamstats.asp?team=1115&report=schedule'
raw.schedule <- readHTMLTable(url, which=2, elFun = myFun)
> head(raw.schedule)
Date Opponent Time TV Result
1 11/14 vs. Yale 5:30 PM ET W 88 - 85
2 11/18 vs. La Salle 8:00 PM ET L 58 - 60
3 11/22 at Albany 7:00 PM ET W 76 - 73
4 11/25 vs. Hartford 7:00 PM ET L 50 - 54
5 11/30 vs. Vermont 1:00 PM ET W 89 - 73
6 12/5 at Siena 7:00 PM ET Tickets