encode HTML entities with a regexp

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Can You please clear my regexp doubt

$input='
This is sample &lt;This is sample text>
This is sample &lt;This is sample text <a>this is sample text</a> This
+ is sample>
';
[download]

I should match all the < to > and stored in an array.

conditions:

Inbetween < to >, <a>..</a> tag may comes 0 or more times

Other tag should not come except <a>..</a>

Don't conside the > in <a> and </a> tag

Edited by Arunbear: Changed title from 'regexp', as per Monastery guidelines

Comment on encode HTML entities with a regexp Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: encode HTML entities with a regexp by gopalr (Priest) on May 12, 2005 at 07:01 UTC
Try this `use strict; my $input=' This is sample <This is sample text> This is sample <This is sample text <a>this is sample text</a> sam +ple text > '; my @arr=$input=~m#<[^<>]+(?:<a>.+?</a>[^<>]*)?>#g; local $"="\n"; print "\n@arr";` [download] Output `<This is sample text> <This is sample text <a>this is sample text</a> sample text >` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: encode HTML entities with a regexp by Ido (Hermit) on May 12, 2005 at 16:40 UTC
I believe this might be a little buggy, unless I misunderstand the requirement. But take a look at: `use strict; my $input=' This is sample <This is sample text> This is sample <Th<a> </a>is is sa<not a>mple text <a>this is samp +le text</a> sample text >'; my @arr=$input=~m#<[^<>]+(?:<a>.+?</a>[^<>])?>#g; print join "\n",@arr;` [download] I'm wondering about what might be inside <a>..</a>, and whether they should be balanced. In case not, you could simply go for: `qr {<(?:[^<>]+\|<a>\|</a>)>}` [download] Or perhaps: `qr {<(?:[^<>]+\|<a>\|</a>)[^>]>}` [download] Otherwise, you might try: `my $re; $re=qr{(?:[^<>]+\|<a>(??{$re})?</a>)*}; my @arr=$input=~m#<$re>#g;` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]