Get text of elem from within formatters function

[NTass02]

I'd like to get at the text that is parsed for each element. I have a formatter function for format: a and format: *. I want to be able to get the text that is walked from within the function. How do I do so? I thought I could do text = walk(elem.children, builder), but it keeps coming back undefined.

[KillyMXI]

walk(elem.children, builder) doesn't return anything - it talks to the builder.

Depending on what you need, there are different ways to get the text in formatters which may be useful in different situations.

Built-in formatter for blockquotes uses blockTransform function when closing the block:

node-html-to-text/packages/html-to-text/src/text-formatters.js

Lines 86 to 99 in 5b7ca1c

	function formatBlockquote (elem, walk, builder, formatOptions) {
	builder.openBlock({
	leadingLineBreaks: formatOptions.leadingLineBreaks || 2,
	reservedLineLength: 2
	});
	walk(elem.children, builder);
	builder.closeBlock({
	trailingLineBreaks: formatOptions.trailingLineBreaks || 2,
	blockTransform: str => ((formatOptions.trimEmptyLines !== false) ? trimCharacter(str, '\n') : str)
	.split('\n')
	.map(line => '> ' + line)
	.join('\n')
	});
	}

Built-in formatter for anchors (a) uses a word-by-word transform function to just spy out the plain text (not the final formatted text that the builder will produce):

node-html-to-text/packages/html-to-text/src/text-formatters.js

Lines 162 to 170 in 5b7ca1c

	let text = '';
	builder.pushWordTransform(
	str => {
	if (str) { text += str; }
	return str;
	}
	);
	walk(elem.children, builder);
	builder.popWordTransform();

The builder itself: https://github.com/html-to-text/node-html-to-text/blob/master/packages/base/src/block-text-builder.js

I may consider expanding the builder API when I run into use cases where existing methods are not enough.
Adding openInline and closeInline might be something for me to consider...