matching content in a specific html tag

Question

I want to match content inside every font tag with a color:

inside html <font color="#000000">this should be matched</font><font color="#777777">this shouldn't be</font><font color="#000000">this should be matched too</font> inside html

But when I use the following regex:

<font color=\"#000000\">(.*)<\/font>

It will match the whole string starting with first font tag, including the one that has #77777 color. Can someone please tell me what am I doing wrong?

Thanks

The `` tag is deprecated in HTML4 and has been removed in HTML5. Consider replacing with CSS :) — dsgriffin, Jul 03 '13 at 09:50
[Don't use regex to parse HTML](http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/674700). — Alex Filipovici, Jul 03 '13 at 09:51

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 03 '13 at 09:52

(.*) matches everything, including other elements. It's in a greedy mode, meaning it will try to consume as much as possible. You can add a non-greedy operator to the '*' star operator, usually using .?*

Try with :

<font color=\"#000000\">(.*?)<\/font>

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 03 '13 at 09:51

0

You should add a 'non-greedy operator', i.e.:

<font color=\"#000000\">(.*?)<\/font>

answered Jul 03 '13 at 09:51

orique

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 03 '13 at 09:54

0

The <font> and <basefont> tags should be avoided because they have been deprecated since HTML version 4. Fonts should be provided using CSS rather than the <font> tag.

answered Jul 03 '13 at 09:54

Leandro Nagem Zolini

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 03 '13 at 10:01

0

Try this...

<font color=\"#000000\">([^<>]+)<\/font>

answered Jul 03 '13 at 10:01

Krishna

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matching content in a specific html tag

4 Answers4