From: Ron Jeffries <ronjeffries@...>
Date: 2002-02-13T20:54:13+09:00
Subject: simple XML parsing (greedy / non-greedy

Suppose I had this text

	'<a>this is a</a><a>this is a also</a>'

and I wanted to write a regexp that would match the tag <a>..</a> and
return

	'this is a'
	(not 'this is a</a><a>this is a also')

I'd sort of like to use a pattern like

Regexp.new( '<a>(.*)</a>' ), but this is greedy and matches as far as it
can.

Is there a way to tell the match operator to stop on the earliest match?

If not, what's a good way to get what I want ... I /do/ want to accept
embedded tags such as

	<a>this is <b>ok</b> the answer</a><a>and this is not</a>

so I can't just blow out on a '<'.

(I do know I could go to a real XML parser, and maybe I will. Right now
I'm just looking to extract some moderately simple stuff ...

Thanks ...

Ronald E Jeffries
http://www.XProgramming.com
http://www.objectmentor.com
I'm giving the best advice I have. You get to decide whether it's true for you.