If you're dealing with HTML then you should look at HTML::Parser or one of its subclasses.

Update: Here's one example:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;

use HTML::Parser;

my $p = HTML::Parser->new(text_h => [\&text, 'text'],
                          default_h => [\&passthru, 'text']);

$p->parse_file(*DATA);

sub text {
  $_[0] =~ s/foo/bar/;

  print $_[0];
}

sub passthru {
  print $_[0];
}

__DATA__
<html>
  <head><title>foo</title><head>
  <body>
    <h1 class="foo">foo<h1>
  </body>
</html>

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<http://www.dave.org.uk>

"The first rule of Perl club is you do not talk about Perl club."
-- Chip Salzenberg

In reply to Re: Regexp to ignore HTML tags by davorg
in thread Regexp to ignore HTML tags by markhoy

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.