From: Jari Williamsson <jari.williamsson@...>
Date: 2008-03-01T04:36:37+09:00
Subject: Re: Need a regex searching html code

Todd Benson wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 1:19 PM, Jari Williamsson
> <jari.williamsson@mailbox.swipnet.se> wrote:
>> Mark Thomas wrote:
>>  > All the regex solutions provided will break with the following
>>  > perfectly valid HTML:
>>  >
>>  > <div class="info">
>>  > <h5 >Tagline:</h5>
>>  > Yippee Ki Yay Mo - John 6:27
>>  > </div>
>>  >
>>  > This is one of many reasons it is a BAD idea to use regexes to parse
>>  > HTML. Regular expressions are simply not the right tool for the job.
>>
>>  Sorry if I'm missing the point:
>>  ---
>>  the_text = %q{
>>
>> <div class="info">
>>  <h5 >Tagline:</h5>
>>  Yippee Ki Yay Mo - John 6:27
>>  </div>
>>  }
>>
>>  the_text.each_line do |line|
>>     puts "Within DIV tags: #{line}" if (line=~/<div/)..(line=~/<\/div/)
>>     puts "Within H5 tags: #{line}" if (line=~/<h5/)..(line=~/<\/h5/)
>>  end
>>  ---
>>
>>  Result:
>>  Within DIV tags: <div class="info">
>>  Within DIV tags: <h5 >Tagline:</h5>
>>  Within H5 tags: <h5 >Tagline:</h5>
>>  Within DIV tags: Yippee Ki Yay Mo - John 6:27
>>  Within DIV tags: </div>
> 
> What if you have a div inside a div?  Although, the OP said "any"
> legitimate html inside a div, there's part of me that begs the
> question: which div?

Sure, for real-life HTML with nested tags it'll break. I just wanted to 
point out that for simple parsing needs (as the example that I replied 
to) regexps can find both beginning and end tags.



Best regards,

Jari Williamsson