Get Perseus Short Defs in Google Sheets

get_perseus_short_defs.gs

function getShortDef(input) {
  var array = [];

  var url = "http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=" + input;
  var page = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url);
  var doc = Xml.parse(page, true);
  var bodyHtml = doc.html.body.toXmlString();
  doc = XmlService.parse(bodyHtml);
  var root = doc.getRootElement();  
    
  var entries = getElementsByClassName(root, 'lemma_definition');
  for (var i = 0; i < entries.length; i++) {
    array.push(entries[i].getText().trim());
  }
  return array.join('; ');
}

// https://sites.google.com/site/scriptsexamples/learn-by-example/parsing-html
function getElementsByClassName(element, classToFind) {  
  var data = [];
  var descendants = element.getDescendants();
  descendants.push(element);  
  for(i in descendants) {
    var elt = descendants[i].asElement();
    if(elt != null) {
      var classes = elt.getAttribute('class');
      if(classes != null) {
        classes = classes.getValue();
        if(classes == classToFind) data.push(elt);
        else {
          classes = classes.split(' ');
          for(j in classes) {
            if(classes[j] == classToFind) {
              data.push(elt);
              break;
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
  return data;
}