Re: Regex grabs too much

Sorry, I should have included Code.

$data =~ s/<.*?(\(~ .*? ~\)).*?>/$1/g
[download]

was my first attempt, and grabbed way way way too much.

$data =~ s/<.{1,10}(\(~ .*? ~\)).{1,10}>/$1/g
[download]

Came closer but still wouldn't have worked in the example I gave.

What I want is for


<input type="button" value="(~ something ~)">
[download]

to be converted to just the variable, removing the form element around it, and for

<p> date: (~ something ~) </p>
[download]

to be left exactly as it is.

Comment on Re: Regex grabs too much Select or Download Code

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RE: Re: Regex grabs too much by lhoward (Vicar) on Jun 05, 2000 at 20:56 UTC
It sould like you could express what you want as follows: If one of my special (~ ... ~) tags is found inside an HTML tag, replace that whole HTML tag with my special tag. Otherwise leave it alone. In that case the following code should do the trick: `$data =~ s/<[^<>]?($~ .? ~$)[^<>]?>/$1/g;` [download] comment added in response to the following message `[^<>]` [download] That is a character-class consisting of not > or <*. The perlre documentation has more details on how this works. My RE works by looking for the opening < of an HTML tag, then 0 or more non < > characters, then the special tag, then 0 or more non < > characters, then the > that closes the original HTML tag.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
RE: RE: Re: Regex grabs too much by raflach (Pilgrim) on Jun 05, 2000 at 21:02 UTC
That worked perfectly! Can you explain what `[^<>]` [download] actually is doing? That seems to be the only difference between your code and mine, and it confuses me considerably.	[reply] [d/l]
RE: RE: RE: Re: Regex grabs too much by Anonymous Monk on Jun 05, 2000 at 21:45 UTC
It means "not one of those two characters" viva el perl libre	[reply]
RE: RE: RE: Re: Regex grabs too much by mikfire (Deacon) on Jun 05, 2000 at 21:41 UTC
I am not an lhoward and I do not play one on TV, but I can explain that bit of regex. lhoward has defined a set, as indicated by the [ ]. When perl's regex engine sees this, anything within the brackets will be considered a match. However, lhoward was tricky and made the first character a ^. When the first character of set is a ^, it negates the set ( mathematicians call it the complement, but I can't spell 'complement' ) and tells the regex to match everything but what is in the set. `[^<>]` [download] is saying to match anything that isn't a < or a > HTH, mikfire	[reply] [d/l]