gistfile1.rb

# The purpose is to turn all special characters into ASCII
# é -> e
# à -> a
# etc...

require "iconv"
require "open-uri"
require "rubygems"
require "nokogiri"

class String
  # This turns "à" into "`a" 
  def to_ugly_ascii
    Iconv.iconv("ascii//translit", "utf-8", self)[0]
  end
end

doc = Nokogiri::HTML.parse(open("http://unitproj.library.ucla.edu/dlib/lat/display.cfm?ms=uclalat_1429_b3719_G3448&searchType=keyword&k=walburga&w=none&x=title&y=none&z=none&s=1"))

text = doc.at "/html/body/div[2]/table/tr[3]/td/table/tr[2]/td/table/tr/td/table/tr[5]/td[2]"


html = text.inner_html[76,31]
content = text.content[76,31]


puts html.to_ugly_ascii
puts content.to_ugly_ascii # Returns an error. Why?