R readHTMLTable函数不起作用

Question

I have the following code written in R in which I would like to obtain some names from this particular webpage .

library(RCurl)
library(XML)
x <- getURL("http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-passengers-crew-lived/country-17/england.html")
x_2 <- htmlParse(x)
x_3 <- readHTMLTable(x_2) 

However, whenever I look at the contents of x_3, I get the following...

x_3
named list()

It seems as though the readHTMLTable function is not able to obtain the tables. Can anyone help me obtain the names of the passengers from this web page without having to copy and paste? Much appreciated.

Answer 1

library(rvest)
library(dplyr)

base <- "http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-passengers-crew-lived/country-17/england.html"

# I use the older rvest package...`html` might be `read_html` now.Link to git repo below:
# https://github.com/hadley/rvest/blob/7d65d84e013b1bb3827ae0a2e05ddaed4875c112/R/parse.R
data_df <- (html(base) %>% html_table)[[1]]

knitr::kable(summary(data_df))

    |   |    Name         |    Age          | Class/Dept      |   Ticket        |   Joined        |    Job          |Boat [Body]      |             |
    |:--|:----------------|:----------------|:----------------|:----------------|:----------------|:----------------|:----------------|:------------|
    |   |Length:1190      |Length:1190      |Length:1190      |Length:1190      |Length:1190      |Length:1190      |Length:1190      |Mode:logical |
    |   |Class :character |Class :character |Class :character |Class :character |Class :character |Class :character |Class :character |NA's:1190    |
    |   |Mode  :character |Mode  :character |Mode  :character |Mode  :character |Mode  :character |Mode  :character |Mode  :character |NA           |