Bypass Style Formatting when Parsing RSS Feed in R - r

Question

I am trying to scrape and parse the following RSS feed http://www.nestle.com/_handlers/rss.ashx?q=068f9d6282034061936dbe150c72d197. I have no problem to extract the basic items that I need (e.g., title, description, pubDate) using the following code:
library(RCurl)
library(XML)
xml.url <- "http://www.nestle.com/_handlers/rss.ashx?q=068f9d6282034061936dbe150c72d197"
script <- getURL(xml.url)
doc <- xmlParse(script)
titles <- xpathSApply(doc,'//item/title',xmlValue)
descriptions <- xpathSApply(doc,'//item/description',xmlValue)
pubdates <- xpathSApply(doc,'//item/pubDate',xmlValue)
My problem is that the output for item "description" includes not only the actual text but also a lot of style formatting expressions. For example, the first element is:
descriptions[1]
[1] "<p><iframe height=\"322\" src=\"https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/fhESDXnlMa0?rel=0\" frameBorder=\"0\" width=\"572\"></iframe><br />\n<br />\n<p><em>Nescafé</em> is partnering with Facebook to launch an immersive video, pioneering new technology just released for the platform.</p>\n<p>\nThe <em>Nescafé</em> <a class=\"externalLink\" title=\"Opens in a new window: Nescafé on Facebook\" href=\"https://www.facebook.com/Nescafe/videos/vb.203900255471/10156233581755472/?type=2&theater\" target=\"_blank\">‘Good Morning World’ video</a> stars people in kitchens across the world, performing the hit song ‘Don’t Worry’ using spoons, cups, forks and a jar of coffee. Uniquely, viewers can rotate their smartphones through 360˚ to explore the video, the first time this has been possible on Facebook.</p>\n<p>\n“We know young coffee lovers pick up their phone at the start of every day looking to be entertained by real experiences. The 360˚ video allows us to be engaging in an innovative way,” said Carsten Fredholm, Senior Vice President of Nestlé’s Beverage Strategic Business Unit.\n</p>\n<p><em>Nescafé</em> recently teamed up with Google to offer the first virtual reality coffee experience through the <em>Nescafé 360˚</em> app. It also became the first global brand to move its website onto Tumblr, to strengthen connections with younger fans by allowing them to create and share content.</p>\n<p>The Nestlé brand is one of only six globally to partner Facebook for the launch of this technology.</p></p>"
I can think of a regex approach to replace the unwanted character strings. However, is there a way to access the plain text elements of item "description" directly through xpath?
Any help with this issue, is very much appreciated. Thank you.

Answer 1

You can do:
descriptions <- sapply(descriptions, function(x) {
xmlValue(xmlRoot(htmlParse(x)))
}, USE.NAMES=FALSE)
which gives (via cat(stringr::str_wrap(descriptions[[1]], 70)):
In a move that will provide young Europeans increased access to
jobs and training opportunities, Nestlé and the Alliance for YOUth
have joined the European Pact for Youth as founding members. Seven
million people in Europe under the age of 25 are still inactive -
neither in employment, education or training. The European Pact for
Youth, created by European CSR business network CSR Europe and the
European Commission, aims to work together with businesses, youth
organisations, education providers and other stakeholders to reduce
skills gaps and increase youth employability. As part of the Pact, the
Alliance for YOUth will focus on setting up âdual learningâ schemes
across Europe, combining formal education with apprenticeships and on-
the-job training to help match skills with jobs on the market. The
Alliance for YOUth is a group of almost 200 companies mobilised by
Nestlé to help young people in Europe find work. It has pledged to
create 100,000 employability opportunities by 2017 and has already met
half of this target in its first year. Luis Cantarell, Executive Vice
President for Nestlé and co-initiator of the European Pact for Youth,
said: âPromoting a cultural shift to dual learning schemes based on
business-education collaboration is at the heart of Nestléâs youth
employment initiative since its start in 2013. The European Pact for
Youth will help to build a skilled workforce and will tackle youth
unemployment.â Learn more about the European Pact for Youth and read
their press release.
There are \n characters at various points in the resultant text (in almost all the descriptions) but you can gsub those away.