how to get innerhtml using regex

Question

how to get innerhtml with nested tags using regex

Example:

<div class="def">
<ul>
<li>..</li>
<li>..</li>
</ul>
</div>

<div class="def">
<ul>
<li>..</li>
<li>..</li>
</ul>
</div>

I need only the first div content of this code "(?s)(<div\\sclass=\"def\">(.+)<\\/div>)" when ever i use this code i get both the div contents

How to get just the first one alone ?

Please help...

[See here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags) — Pavel Anossov, Jul 04 '13 at 04:00
Help yourself and the world by stop using regex for html parsing. — Luiggi Mendoza, Jul 04 '13 at 04:04

score 7 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:11

7

This is becuase of .+ in your regex..Change it to .+?

But you should NEVER use REGEX for parsing html..

Use an HTML PARSER and here's how to get div

Why use parser?

Consider your regex..There are infinite number of cases where you could break your code

To summarize don't ever ever ever ever ever ever use regex for parsing html

edited May 23 '17 at 12:11

Community

answered Jul 04 '13 at 04:04

Anirudha

1 Answers1