From: Jari Williamsson <jari.williamsson@...>
Date: 2008-03-01T04:41:01+09:00
Subject: Re: Need a regex searching html code

Florian Gilcher wrote:
> 
> On Feb 29, 2008, at 8:19 PM, Jari Williamsson 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>
>>
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Jari Williamsson
>>
> 
> This may work on this short snippet. Consider this:
> 
> the_text = %q{
> <div class="info">
>   <div class="nextinfo">
>   <h5 >Tagline:</h5>
>   Yippee Ki Yay Mo - John 6:27
>   </div>
> </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
> 
> It doesn't see the second </div> as it considers _both_ divs closed.

It consider the first div closed. It never sees the other one.


Best regards,

Jari Williamsson