What is the efficient way to search highest number of cells in big table with numerous colspan (merge cells ** colspan should be ignored so in below example highest number of cells is 4 in first row). Is it js/jquery with reg expression or just the loop with bubble sorting. I got one link as below explainig use of regex is it ideal way ... can someone suggest pseudo code for this. High cpu consumption due to a jquery regex patch <table width="156" height="84" border="0" > <tbody> <tr style="height:10px"> <td width="10" style="width:10px; height:10px"/> <td width="10" style="width:10px; height:10px"/> <td width="10" style="width:10px; height:10px"/> <td width="10" style="width:10px; height:10px"/> </tr> <tr style="height:10px"> <td width="10" style="width:10px; height:10px" colspan="2"/> <td width="10" style="width:10px; height:10px"/> <td width="10" style="width:10px; height:10px"/> </tr> <tr style="height:10px"> <td width="10" style="width:10px; height:10px"/> <td width="10" style="width:10px; height:10px"/> <td width="10" style="width:10px; height:10px" colspan="2"/> </tr> <tr style="height:10px"> <td width="10" style="width:10px; height:10px" colspan="2"/> <td width="10" style="width:10px; height:10px"/> <td width="10" style="width:10px; height:10px"/> </tr> </tbody> </table>