Matching string and then characters until a specified string appears again

Question

Hi

I have the following string:

<tr><td>2.</td></tr><tr><td colspan="25"><img src="/adad4.gif" alt="" align="middle"></td></tr><tr><td>3.</td></tr><tr><td colspan="25"><img src="/h5s6c.gif" alt="" align="middle"></td></tr><tr><td>4.</td></tr><tr><td>5.</td><td>2</td></tr>

I want to remove alle occurrences of

<tr><td colspan="25"><img src="/somegifname.gif" alt="" align="middle"></td></tr>

part. But how?

In short I want to remove everything from

<tr><td colspan="25">

to the first following occurrence of

</tr>

and include both of those string in the removal as well.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

In C# using regular expression:

var regex =
   new Regex(
      "<tr><td colspan=\"25\">.*?</tr>"
   );

var result =
   regex.Replace(
      "<tr><td>2.</td></tr><tr><td colspan=\"25\"><img src=\"/adad4.gif\" alt=\"\" align=\"middle\"></td></tr><tr><td>3.</td></tr><tr><td colspan=\"25\"><img src=\"/h5s6c.gif\" alt=\"\" align=\"middle\"></td></tr><tr><td>4.</td></tr><tr><td>5.</td><td>2</td></tr>",
      ""
   );

Note the question mark in <tr><td colspan=\"25\">.*?</tr> this removes the shortest match.