How to get subset of string using Javascript/JQuery/JSON?

Question

Hi, I want to get a subset of a string in Javascript. Currently, I only know how to store the entire string:

I have this as a JSON variable with a callback to foo:

foo({"results":[
"<div id=\"following\"><span><a href=\"http://twitter.com/barackobama\"&gt;Obama&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;"
]})

And this is my callback function:

function foo(o){
  var entireDiv = o.results[0];
}

How do I store just the "< a href = ... > ... < / a> " tag as a string in Javascript?

Answer 1

You can use a regular expression to find the anchor tag:

function foo(o){
  var entireDiv = o.results[0];
  var link = /<a.+?\/a>/.exec(entireDiv)[0];
}

Answer 2

var link = entireDiv.match(/<a[^>]*>.*<\/a>/);

Answer 3

With jQuery, you can parse in a piece of HTML as the second argument.

So, to update your foo function:

$j = jQuery.noConflict();

function foo(o)
{
    var JustTheLink = $j( 'a' , o.results[0] ).parent().html();
}

Update:
With multiple links to handle, you can do this:

function foo(o)
{
    $j('a',o.results[0]).each(handleSrc);
}

function handleSrc()
{
    console.log(this); // tag
    console.log($j(this).html()); // contents
}