Cheerio scraping returning only two rows - node.js

Question

So I tested my scraping on a static HTML file before adding it to my Node app.
The problem is that it's not returning all the rows.
On the site:
$('#sport tr').length
//Returns 13
In Cheerio:
$('#sport tr').length
//Returns 2
I'm stumped, here is the code I'm using. I've contained the URL as proof, so you can visit it yourself if you wish.
I'm suspecting it's something to do with var $ = cheerio.load(html); however I'm not experienced in Cheerio to say outright that's the problem.
var express = require('express');
var fs = require('fs');
var request = require('request');
var cheerio = require('cheerio');
var app = express();
app.get('/scrape', function(req, res){
var url = 'http://www.olbg.com/football.php';
var json = [];
request(url, function(error, response, html){
if(!error){
var $ = cheerio.load(html);
console.log($('#sport tr').length);
var headers = [];
$('#sport tr th').each(function(i, th) {
var text = $(th).text();
if (text.trim() !== "") {
headers[i] = text.replace(/[\t\n\r\s]/mgi, '');
}
});
$('#sport tr').each(function(i, tr) {
// skip if header
if (!$(tr).is('th')) {
var temp = {};
temp["Event"] = $(tr).find('td').eq(0).text().trim();
temp["TopSelection"] = $(tr).find('td').eq(1).text().trim();
temp["BookieOdds"] = $(tr).find('td').eq(2).text().trim();
temp["OLBGRating"] = $(tr).find('td').eq(3).find('img').length;
if (temp["Event"] !== "" || temp["TopSelection"] !== ""){
json.push(temp);
}
}
});
}
// To write to the system we will use the built in 'fs' library.
// In this example we will pass 3 parameters to the writeFile function
// Parameter 1 : output.json - this is what the created filename will be called
// Parameter 2 : JSON.stringify(json, null, 4) - the data to write, here we do an extra step by calling JSON.stringify to make our JSON easier to read
// Parameter 3 : callback function - a callback function to let us know the status of our function
fs.writeFile('output.json', JSON.stringify(json), function(err){
console.log('File successfully written!');
})
// Finally, we'll just send out a message to the browser reminding you that this app does not have a UI.
res.send(json);
});
});
app.listen("8081");
console.log("Magic happens on port 8081");
exports = module.exports = app;

Answer 1

The reason that you're not getting the expected result is because the (table) html on that page is mangled. If you look at the second <td> in the second <tr> of the table#sport, you'll see an "extra" </td>. This causes the <td> that the table#sport is inside to close (and an implicit closing of table#sport) on some parsers because that is the closest open <td>. So that is why the parser reports only 2 <tr>s instead of 13. The other <tr>s you're expecting are now outside of table#sport.
Probably your best bet is to pass the html through an HTML tidying program/script (e.g. this one with the clean option enabled) first before passing it to cheerio. After that, your selector should return the elements you're probably expecting.