I'm trying to pull some data out of an HTML filee.

Before I get to the specific problem I would like to say that, yes I realize that this is far from optimal in more ways then one.
I have read Death to Dot Star! and realize that this regex is probably horrendously inefficient. I have also been advised that HTML::TableExtract is a better way to get data out of an html table then is a regex.

With all that in mind I would like to ask for help with this problem.
/^<(?:[Tt][Rr]).*?>(\d{5}).*?>(\d{2}).*?>(\d{3}).*?>(\d{3}).*?>(\d{2}).*?>(?:[&\w]).*?>(\w+(?:(?:[\s\w|&]+)?)*).*?>\s(\d).*?>(\w*?\d(?:[,\d\*]?)*)((?:[\w\d,]?)+).*?>(\w(?:(?:[\w\d-])?)*).*?<\/[tT][rR]>(<.*)?/ I am using that regex to pull the information out of an webpage, with the following line format (all newlines are mine to ease readbility).

<tr><td width="0" align="center"><font face="Arial" size="2">5 Digits 
+</font></td>
<td width="0" align="center"><font face="Arial" size="2">2 Digits    <
+/font></td>
<td width="0" align="center"><font face="Arial" size="2">3 Digits   </
+font></td>
<td width="0" align="center"><font face="Arial" size="2">3 Digits   </
+font></td>
<td width="0" align="center"><font face="Arial" size="2">2 Digits    <
+/font></td>
<td width="0" align="center"><font face="Arial" size="2">&nbsp;</font>
+</td>
<td align="center"><font face="Arial" size="2">AS tring</font></td>
<td align="center"><font face="Arial" size="2"> 1 Digit always precede
+d by a space </font></td>
<td align="center"><font face="Arial" size="2">Letters, Digits, (comma
+s|asterisks)?</font></td>
<td align="center"><font face="Arial" size="2">A String always includi
+ng a dash</font></td>
<td align="center"><font face="Arial" size="2">&nbsp;</font></td></tr>

[download]
Now here's the problem, the 9th piece of data is on occasion the string "SEE SCHEDULE OF CLASSES" and the tenth will then be &nbsp; the regex is the logic statement of an if statement.
  while <FILE> {
    if (REGEX) {
    do stuff
    }
  }
The problem comes in when a file with this alternate format is input. The script hangs and then says that there was an internal server error. I managed to get around this by using a different regex to first test for the "SEE SCHEDULE OF CLASSES" string and if it exists simply going to the next line of the file.

My question is why does my regex simply not match, return false, the if not execute, and the loop continue?
Thanks in advance for any and all help.

   -Etan

In reply to Problem with CGI script not working (regex at fault) by deryni

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