A NavigableString object now has an immutable '.name' property whose

+  value is always None. This makes it easier to iterate over a mixed
+  list of tags and strings without having to check whether each
+  element is a tag or a string.

3 files changed, 14 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/bs4/diagnose.py b/bs4/diagnose.py
index 7c7ea7a..df72f65 100644
--- a/bs4/diagnose.py
+++ b/bs4/diagnose.py
@@ -202,5 +202,5 @@ def profile(num_elements=100000, parser="lxml"):
 
 if __name__ == '__main__':
     #diagnose(sys.stdin.read())
-    profile(10000, parser="html5lib")
+    profile(100000, parser="lxml")
     # benchmark_parsers()
diff --git a/bs4/element.py b/bs4/element.py
index 742624d..f248895 100644
--- a/bs4/element.py
+++ b/bs4/element.py
@@ -674,6 +674,13 @@ class NavigableString(unicode, PageElement):
         output = self.format_string(self, formatter)
         return self.PREFIX + output + self.SUFFIX
 
+    @property
+    def name(self):
+        return None
+
+    @name.setter
+    def name(self, name):
+        raise AttributeError("A NavigableString cannot be given a name.")
 
 class PreformattedString(NavigableString):
     """A NavigableString not subject to the normal formatting rules.
diff --git a/bs4/tests/test_tree.py b/bs4/tests/test_tree.py
index 2d09f96..0acc092 100644
--- a/bs4/tests/test_tree.py
+++ b/bs4/tests/test_tree.py
@@ -1219,6 +1219,12 @@ class TestCDAtaListAttributes(SoupTest):
         # attribute for any other tag.
         self.assertEqual('ISO-8859-1 UTF-8', soup.a['accept-charset'])
 
+    def test_string_has_immutable_name_property(self):
+        string = self.soup("s").string
+        self.assertEqual(None, string.name)
+        def t():
+            string.name = 'foo'
+        self.assertRaises(AttributeError, t)
 
 class TestPersistence(SoupTest):
     "Testing features like pickle and deepcopy."