How can I remove certain characters from inside angle-brackets, leaving the characters outside alone

Posted by Iain Fraser on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Iain Fraser
Published on 2010-05-12T08:01:46Z Indexed on 2010/05/13 0:34 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 335

Filed under:

regex

|

string-manipulation

|

html

|

replace

Edit: To be clear, please understand that I am not using Regex to parse the html, that's crazy talk! I'm simply wanting to clean up a messy string of html so it will parse

Edit #2: I should also point out that the control character I'm using is a special unicode character - it's not something that would ever be used in a proper tag under any normal circumstances

Suppose I have a string of html that contains a bunch of control characters and I want to remove the control characters from inside tags only, leaving the characters outside the tags alone.

For example

Here the control character is the numeral "1".

Input

The quick 1<strong>orange</strong> lemming <sp11a1n 1class1='jumpe111r'11>jumps over</span> 1the idle 1frog

Desired Output

The quick 1<strong>orange</strong> lemming <span class='jumper'>jumps over</span> 1the idle 1frog

So far I can match tags which contain the control character but I can't remove them in one regex. I guess I could perform another regex on my matches, but I'd really like to know if there's a better way.

My regex

Bear in mind this one only matches tags which contain the control character.

<(([^>])*?`([^>])*?)*?>

Thanks very much for your time and consideration.

Iain Fraser

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about regex

Find multiple regex in each line and skip result if one of the regex doesn't match

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have a list of variables: variables = ['VariableA', 'VariableB','VariableC'] which I'm going to search for, line by line ifile = open("temp.txt",'r') d = {} match = zeros(len(variables)) for line in ifile: emptyCells=0 for i in range(len(variables)): regex = r'('+variables[i]+r')[:|=|\(](-… >>> More
OWASP Regex Repository: Is this regex correct?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I was looking at the regular expression for validating various data types from the (OWASP Regex Repository). One of the regular expressions in there is called safetext and looks like: ^[a-zA-Z0-9\s.\-]+$ My first question is: Is this regular expression correct? complementary question If this… >>> More
Make a Perl-style regex interpreter behave like a basic or extended regex interpreter

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I am writing a tool to help students learn regular expressions. I will probably be writing it in Java. The idea is this: the student types in a regular expression and the tool shows which parts of a text will get matched by the regex. Simple enough. But I want to support several different regex… >>> More
JS regex isn't matching, even thought it works with a regex tester

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm writing a piece of client-side javascript code that takes a function and finds the derivative of it, however, the regex that's supposed to match with the power rule fails to work in the context of the javascript program, even though it sucessfully matches when it's used with an independent regex… >>> More
c# RegEx with "|"

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I need to be able to check for a pattern with | in them. For example an expression like d*|*t should return true for a string like "dtest|test". I'm no regex hero so I just tried a couple of things, like: Regex Pattern = new Regex("s*\|*d"); //unable to build because of single backslash Regex Pattern… >>> More

Related posts about string-manipulation

String manipulation in C#

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have the following text, I need to extract the exception name and the continuing sentence from the file, but the file has continuous sentences without a space. ??????>????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????… >>> More
Regarding String manipulation

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have a String str which can have list of values like below. I want the first letter in the string to be uppercase and if underscore appears in the string then i need to remove it and need to make the letter after it as upper case. The rest all letter i want it to be lower case. "" "abc" "abc_def" "Abc_def_Ghi12_abd" "abc__de" "_" Output: "" "Abc" "AbcDef" "AbcDefGhi12Abd" "AbcDe" "… >>> More
String manipulation in C# ( Brainstroming ;-) )

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have the following text , i need to extract the exception name and the continuing sentence from the file... but the file has continues sentence without a space. ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????… >>> More
php string-manipulation (clear the "_" and the timestamp)

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi! I cant find the way how to strip the useless section of my string (read from SQL) I've tried the strreplace and truncate but those was not good at all. I've got a string variable called $stuff if $stuff = 145_timestamp i want to clear the _ and the chars after it. so i want to $stuff be 145… >>> More
c# string manipulation

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
i have string of 9 letters. string myString = "123987898"; I want to retrieve frist 3 letter "123" then 2 more leters "98" and then 4 more letters "7898". Which c# string function support this functionality. >>> More