Regex replace double spaces when not in SRC or HREF

Question

Currently I'm working on a project to strip all unnecessary HTML. I've got it al working but I'm using the following code to replace double spaces:

Private Function stripDubbleSpace(ByVal fileContent As String) As String
    While fileContent.IndexOf("  ") <> -1
        fileContent = fileContent.Replace("  ", " ")
    End While
    Return fileContent.Replace("  ", " ")
End Function

The code above works, but within a HREF or and SRC the url will go to a 404 when you replace a double space by 1 space. Don't ask by why there are spaces in my URL, I'm aware that's not the best way.

Example:
/images/my img.jpg (2 spaces) would be replaced by /images/my img.jpg (1 space), which should not be replaced.

How can I only replace the double spaces when it's not within a HREF or SRC?

The Agility Pack is easy to find elements, but can you also minify your HTML with that Library? — Niels, Dec 19 '12 at 15:41

bonCodigo · Answer 1 · 2012-12-19T15:37:59.013

1

Your code for replacing double space with single space doesn't really use regexp. If you want regexp then it should be like the following:

myurl = myurl.replace(/\s{2,}/g, ' ');

Next step is to expand above regexp to detect HREF and SRC tags and skip them.

Reference 1

Reference 2

edited Dec 19 '12 at 15:37

answered Dec 19 '12 at 15:27

bonCodigo

14,268
1
48
91

I'm aware im currently not using a REGEX, but I'm looking for a solution that does not replace double spaces in SRC or HREF. – Niels Dec 19 '12 at 15:39
Thanks for the information. But you are at the exact same spot where I am at the moment. How to expand that Regex, that's where my problem lies? – Niels Dec 19 '12 at 15:43
Niels sorry for getting back late. Perhaps I have totally overlooked the latter part. Most of `HREF SRC` regex seems to result in truly ugly and long patterns. So [we shouldn't really pass html by regex](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags/1732454#1732454) I believe you are better off with what @Rawling mentioned: [Html Agility Pack](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4835868/how-to-get-img-src-or-a-hrefs-using-html-agility-pack) – bonCodigo Dec 19 '12 at 19:55

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 19 '12 at 15:45

0

Use the Html Agility Pack. Regex is not smart enough to parse Html with its nested structures, or at least, you end up in hopelessly complicated Regex expressions.

answered Dec 19 '12 at 15:45

Olivier Jacot-Descombes

104,806
13
138
188

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 11 '13 at 15:44

Finally I did not want to use a parser since this will take a lot more time for only this function. My final solution was finding all attributes KEY="VALUE". Replacing the spaces within these attributes by a tag. Then replace all double spaces with 1 space and finally replace the tag by a space. Now the attributes will still keep there spaces and I don't need a Library.

Regex replace double spaces when not in SRC or HREF

3 Answers3