Python: Replacing strings

Question

I'm iterating through pages and I'd like to modify lines containing

<span class="font16"></span>

How can I correct the code below?

text = re.sub(r'<span class="font(.*)"></span><span', r'<span class="font\1">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; </span><span', text)

Right off the bat, I can point out that `(.*)` is greedy and will go as far as it can to the end while leaving `> — Ali Alkhatib, Sep 10 '13 at 02:31
Please see the most voted answer to this question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags — Hyperboreus, Sep 10 '13 at 02:41
Instead of a string literal of the kind `" ..."` you can simply do `r'{} — Bakuriu, Sep 10 '13 at 06:59

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 10 '13 at 07:19

1

The pattern .* will match anything until the end of line, so the match will look like this:

16"></span>....

which isn't what you want. Use a pattern that stops at the first " (since they aren't allowed inside attribute values which are quoted with "):

r'<span class="font([^"]+)"></span><span'

answered Sep 10 '13 at 07:19

Aaron Digulla

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Ok, now, I've got this: text = re.sub(r'{} ; where I'd like to insert the signs between font16"> and . – MarkF6 Sep 10 '13 at 08:24
I'm wondering why the span is empty. You should probably search for `` without the closing `` or the next span.. – Aaron Digulla Sep 10 '13 at 11:53

Python: Replacing strings

1 Answers1