Extracting desired numbers from complicated lines of web pages

try this:  left as an exercise to the reader if these have to be
grouped by 'userid' which might be the case and therefore you might
want to check for non-existent values.  Also on the last line you did
not say it there are only those three values, or could there be more.


input <- readLines(textConnection('
+ [1] "\t\t\t<li id=\"friendCount\"><a
href=\"/user_details_friends?userid=--T8djg0nrb_yMMMA3Y0jQ\">108
Friends</a></li>"
+
+  [2] "\t\t\t<li id=\"reviewCount\"><a
href=\"/user_details_reviews_self?userid=--T8djg0nrb_yMMMA3Y0jQ\">151
Reviews</a></li>"
+
+  [3] "\t\t\t\t<li id=\"updatesCount\">5 Review Updates</li>"
+
+  [4] "\t\t\t\t<li id=\"ftrCount\"><a
href=\"/user_details_reviews_self?review_filter=first&amp;userid=--T8djg0nrb_yMMMA3Y0jQ\">1
First</a></li>"
+
+  [5] "\t\t\t\t<li id=\"fanCount\">2 Fans</li>"
+
+  [6] "\t\t\t\t<li id=\"localPhotoCount\"><a
href=\"/user_local_photos?userid=--T8djg0nrb_yMMMA3Y0jQ\">54 Local
Photos</a></li>"
+
+  [7] <p id="review_votes" class="smaller"><img
src="http://s3-media2.ak.yelpcdn.com/assets/0/www/img/cf265851428e/ico/reviewVotes.gif"
alt=""> Review votes:<br> 2022 Useful, 1591 Funny, and 1756 Cool</p>
+
+         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]'))

# extract the data by brute force and then break apart into a dataframe
count <- lapply(input, function(.line){

+     if (grepl('[0-9]+ Friends', .line))
+         return(sub(".*>([0-9]+) (Friends).*", "\\1:\\2", .line))
+     if (grepl("[0-9]+ Reviews", .line))
+         return(sub(".*>([0-9]+) (Reviews).*", "\\1:\\2", .line))
+     if (grepl("[0-9]+ Review Update", .line))
+         return(sub(".*>([0-9]+) (Review Update).*", "\\1:\\2", .line))
+     if (grepl("[0-9]+ First", .line))
+         return(sub(".*>([0-9]+) (First).*", "\\1:\\2", .line))
+     if (grepl("[0-9]+ Fans", .line))
+         return(sub(".*>([0-9]+) (Fans).*", "\\1:\\2", .line))
+     if (grepl("[0-9]+ Local Photos", .line))
+         return(sub(".*>([0-9]+) (Local Photos).*", "\\1:\\2", .line))
+     if (grepl("[0-9]+ Useful", .line))
+         return(c(  # vector with multiple values
+             sub(".* ([0-9]+) (Useful).*", "\\1:\\2", .line)
+           , sub(".* ([0-9]+) (Funny).*", "\\1:\\2", .line)
+           , sub(".* ([0-9]+) (Cool).*", "\\1:\\2", .line)
+           ))
+     return(NULL)
+ })

# create dataframe
df <- data.frame(do.call(rbind, strsplit(unlist(count), ":")))
names(df) <- c("Value", "Variable")
df

Value      Variable
1   108       Friends
2   151       Reviews
3     5 Review Update
4     1         First
5     2          Fans
6    54  Local Photos
7  2022        Useful
8  1591         Funny
9  1756          Cool

I need to extract the indicted (bold & underlined) numbers from lines coming off web pages.

Of course I don't know ahead of time the location or length of the number.  What I do know
is the tag "Friends", and "Reviews", etc. In fact, it would be good to end up with

Value   Variable
108       Friends
151       Reviews
    5       Review Updates
  NA      First                 <-- assuming here that "First" did not show up on an line
etc.

Of particular trouble is line [7] which requires extracting 3 numbers 2022 (Useful), 1591 (Funny) and 1756 (Cool).
============== Extraction problem lines ===========

[1] "\t\t\t<li id=\"friendCount\"><a href=\"/user_details_friends?userid=--T8djg0nrb_yMMMA3Y0jQ\">108 Friends</a></li>"

 [2] "\t\t\t<li id=\"reviewCount\"><a href=\"/user_details_reviews_self?userid=--T8djg0nrb_yMMMA3Y0jQ\">151 Reviews</a></li>"

 [3] "\t\t\t\t<li id=\"updatesCount\">5 Review Updates</li>"

 [4] "\t\t\t\t<li id=\"ftrCount\"><a href=\"/user_details_reviews_self?review_filter=first&amp;userid=--T8djg0nrb_yMMMA3Y0jQ\">1 First</a></li>"

 [5] "\t\t\t\t<li id=\"fanCount\">2 Fans</li>"

 [6] "\t\t\t\t<li id=\"localPhotoCount\"><a href=\"/user_local_photos?userid=--T8djg0nrb_yMMMA3Y0jQ\">54 Local Photos</a></li>"

 [7] <p id="review_votes" class="smaller"><img src="http://s3-media2.ak.yelpcdn.com/assets/0/www/img/cf265851428e/ico/reviewVotes.gif" alt=""> Review votes:<br> 2022 Useful, 1591 Funny, and 1756 Cool</p>

        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]

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