Using Regular Expressions

[Xarky]

Hi,
I have a text file full of html tags. I would like to extract the
text that is situated between two specific tags. The two tags are
<span class="serif"> ????? </span>.

Now I would like to get the text that is marked as ?. Its length is
not predefined.
Can someone help me out.

Thanks in Advance

[Chris R. Timmons]

be*********@yahoo.com (Xarky) wrote in
news:bc*************************@posting.google.co m:

Hi,
I have a text file full of html tags. I would like to extract
the
text that is situated between two specific tags. The two tags
are
<span class="serif"> ????? </span>.

Now I would like to get the text that is marked as ?. Its
length is
not predefined.

Xarky,
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

....

Match m = Regex.Match(htmlText,
@"<\s*?span.*?class\s*?=\s*?""serif"".*?[^>]*?>(?<contents>.*?)</\s*?span\s*?>",
RegexOptions.Singleline |
RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);

return m.Groups["contents"].ToString();
--
Hope this helps.

Chris.
-------------
C.R. Timmons Consulting, Inc.
http://www.crtimmonsinc.com/

[Barry Mossman]

"Chris R. Timmons" <crtimmons@X_NOSPAM_Xcrtimmonsinc.com> wrote in
message news:Xn**********************************@207.46.2 48.16...

Match m = Regex.Match(htmlText,

@"<\s*?span.*?class\s*?=\s*?""serif"".*?[^>]*?>(?<contents>.*?)</\s*?span\s*?>",
RegexOptions.Singleline |
RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);

return m.Groups["contents"].ToString();

Hi Chris,

I understand the string excepting for the "*?"s What is the impact of the
"?" ?
How does the behaviour differ from
@"<\s*span.*class\s*=\s*""serif"".*[^>]*>(?<contents>.*)</\s*span\s*>",

thanks
Barry Mossman

[Chris R. Timmons]

"Barry Mossman" <BM************@gmail.com> wrote in
news:ew**************@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl:

"Chris R. Timmons" <crtimmons@X_NOSPAM_Xcrtimmonsinc.com> wrote
in message
news:Xn**********************************@207.46.2 48.16...

Match m = Regex.Match(htmlText,

@"<\s*?span.*?class\s*?=\s*?""serif"".*?[^>]*?>(?<contents>.*?)<
/\s*?span\s*?>",
RegexOptions.Singleline |
RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);

return m.Groups["contents"].ToString();

Hi Chris,

I understand the string excepting for the "*?"s What is the
impact of the "?" ?
How does the behaviour differ from
@"<\s*span.*class\s*=\s*""serif"".*[^>]*>(?<contents>.*)</\s*span
\s*>",

Barry,

Normally, quantifiers like * and + are "greedy", which means the
regex will match as many characters as possible. The ? makes the
regex "non-greedy", so the expression will only match the minimum
amount of characters necessary. (Note that in the regex I posted,
the \s*? is equivalent to \s*. I kind of went overboard with the ?s
:-) ).

For example, assume the following input:

<text>first</text><text>second</text>

Let's say I want to extract the text between the first set of <text>
tags. Using this greedy expression:

<text>(.*)</text>

would return this text:

first</text><text>second

See how the .* matched as much as possible?

If the regex is changed to:

<text>(.*?)</text>

then only the minimum amount of text is matched:

first

--
Hope this helps.

Chris.
-------------
C.R. Timmons Consulting, Inc.
http://www.crtimmonsinc.com/

[Barry Mossman]

"Chris R. Timmons" <crtimmons@X_NOSPAM_Xcrtimmonsinc.com> wrote in
message news:Xn**********************************@207.46.2 48.16...

Hope this helps.

Yes, lots. Thanks

Barry Mossman

[xarky]

Thanks that helped alot.

Now suppose I have

<text><I>......<I></text>
and I would like to extract the text between the <text> tags, but remove
any possible tags.

I am doing it as follows -

First extracting the text and then applying this
string newText = Regex.Replace(text,"<[^>]*>","");

Is this the correct way to do it?
Thanks

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[Chris R. Timmons]

xarky <nospam@in_the_sea.kills.xarky> wrote in
news:uQ**************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl:

Thanks that helped alot.

Now suppose I have

<text><I>......<I></text>
and I would like to extract the text between the <text> tags,
but remove any possible tags.

I am doing it as follows -

First extracting the text and then applying this
string newText = Regex.Replace(text,"<[^>]*>","");

Is this the correct way to do it?

xarky,

Yes.
Chris.
-------------
C.R. Timmons Consulting, Inc.
http://www.crtimmonsinc.com/