tags:

views:

105

answers:

2
+1  Q: 

Retrieve Html attributes using Regex

I'm in need of a quick way to put a bunch of html attributes in a Dictionary. Like so

<body topmargin=10 leftmargin=0 class="something"> should amount to

attr["topmargin"]="10"
attr["leftmargin"]="0"
attr["class"]="something"

This is to be done server-side and the tag contents are already available. I just need to weed out the tags with no value and take into account different quotation marks or lack of.

I'm guessing regex should be employed. Found some similar questions, but none that really match my need.

Thanks

edit: clarifying server-side

+3  A: 

What about HtmlAgilityPack?

Arnis L.  2009-08-10 12:34:36
What about it? I don't want a new framework or html parser for this one task that I know a nice regex can solve. Only that I still suck in regex after all these years.
danijels  2009-08-10 12:39:17
Why is this downvoted? it seems relevent, and useful.
djna  2009-08-10 12:40:26
@danijels - It is notoriously difficult to use a regular expression to parse HMTL. I would strongly suggest that you consider this answer. (+1 by the way)
Andrew Hare  2009-08-10 12:40:45
You're going to spend a lot of time trying to get regex working, but a library like this is probably the best route. Especially considering how malformed most HTML sources can get.
Jon Smock  2009-08-10 12:42:06
Regexps are not great for parsing XML-like stuff. The attributes can bein arbitrary orders, and are optional. The formats don't have to be on one line. Sometimes its better to use a parser that really understands hwat its reading.
djna  2009-08-10 12:42:23
+1 I'm curious about the aggregated rep value that was generated in this one year of SO by "Use an actual parser" answers to "Which regex to parse HTML?" questions.
Tomalak  2009-08-10 12:46:15
I suppose I was not as clear in my question as I should have been. This is to be done server-side, and I already have the attribute string ready. Meaning, I don't need to process anything else than the contents of the one html tag.
danijels  2009-08-10 12:46:58
@danijels I just provided an idea how to solve your problem. If it's wrong (and not undesired) - i got no problems to remove it.
Arnis L.  2009-08-10 13:06:08
A: 

I also think that using specialized parsers will be better, but if you want to use regex, try something like:

\<(?<tag>[a-zA-Z]+)( (?<name>\w+)="?(?<value>\w+)"?)*\>

I just tested it, works pretty well

ALOR  2009-08-10 12:50:37

related questions

Displaying Flash content in a C# WinForms application
How to get the value of built, encoded ViewState?
Unhandled Exception Handler in .NET 1.1
How do I connect to a database and loop over a recordset in C#?
How do I most elegantly express left join with aggregate SQL as LINQ query
Get a new object instance from a Type in C#
.NET Testing Framework Advice
Automatically update version number
What is the difference between an int and an Integer in Java/C#?
How to write to Web.Config in Medium Trust ?
WinForms ComboBox data binding gotcha
How do you sort a C# dictionary by value?
Adding Scripting functionality to .NET applications
Floating Point Number parsing: Is there a Catch All algorithm?
How do I print an HTML document from a web service?
Decoding T-SQL CAST in C#/VB.net
Anatomy of a "Memory Leak"
How do I get a distinct, ordered list of names from a DataTable using Linq
Reliable Timer in a Console Application
How do I fill a DataSet or a DataTable from a LINQ query resultset ?
What's the difference between Math.Floor() and Math.Truncate() in .NET?
How do I calculate relative time?
How do I calculate someone's age in C#?
Are there any conversion tools for porting Visual J# code to C#?
When setting a form's opacity should I use a decimal or double?