Regular Expression - Need a simple pattern!

mehdi

Hi,
Consider the following string:

<div>whatever text goes here, and maybe it
contains a carriage return and/or line feed
and it spans in multiple lines</div>

How am I supposed to write an expression that returns the div's
content?
Any help would be highly appreciated,

TIA,
Mehdi

May 4 '07 #1

Subscribe Reply

1258

clintonG

http://www.regexlib.com/ is a good resource.

<%= Clinton Gallagher
NET csgallagher AT metromilwaukee. com
URL http://clintongallagher.metromilwaukee.com/
"mehdi" <me***********@ gmail.comwrote in message
news:11******** **************@ u30g2000hsc.goo glegroups.com.. .

Hi,
Consider the following string:

<div>whatever text goes here, and maybe it
contains a carriage return and/or line feed
and it spans in multiple lines</div>

How am I supposed to write an expression that returns the div's
content?
Any help would be highly appreciated,

TIA,
Mehdi

May 4 '07 #2

Kevin Spencer

You can't, specifically. For example, the following will capture your
example:

(?s)<div>.*</div>

However, a div may contain nested elements, and if any of them is a div, it
will capture only the outermost div, as in:

<div>whatever text goes here, and maybe it
contains a carriage return and/or line feed
<div>whatever text goes here, and maybe it
contains a carriage return and/or line feed
and it spans in multiple lines</div>
and it spans in multiple lines</div>

So, you can't do this with a regular expression alone.

--
HTH,

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP

Printing Components, Email Components,
FTP Client Classes, Enhanced Data Controls, much more.
DSI PrintManager, Miradyne Component Libraries:
http://www.miradyne.net

"mehdi" <me***********@ gmail.comwrote in message
news:11******** **************@ u30g2000hsc.goo glegroups.com.. .

Hi,
Consider the following string:

<div>whatever text goes here, and maybe it
contains a carriage return and/or line feed
and it spans in multiple lines</div>

How am I supposed to write an expression that returns the div's
content?
Any help would be highly appreciated,

TIA,
Mehdi

May 7 '07 #3

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