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I am trying to get all strings enclosed in <*> by using following Regex:

Regex regex = new Regex(@"\<(?<name>\S+)\>", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
string name = e.Match.Groups["name"].Value;

But in some cases where I have text like :

<Vendors><Vtitle/>  <VSurname/></Vendors>

It's returning two strings instead of four, i.e. above Regex outputs 

<Vendors><Vtitle/> //as one string and 
<VSurname/></Vendors> //as second string

Where as I am expecting four strings:

<Vendors>
<Vtitle/>
<VSurname/>
</Vendors>

Could you please guide me what change I need to make to my Regex.

I tried adding '\b' to specify word boundry

new Regex(@"\b\<(?<name>\S+)\>\b", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);

, but that didn't help.

inutan
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    Is there any good reason not to use an xml parser here? – Marc Gravell Dec 14 '09 at 16:57
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    Agreed with Marc; use an XML parser. Unless you want to build one. – Fragsworth Dec 14 '09 at 16:58
  • Are you parsing an XML document or do you have angle bracket tags inside a mostly plain text document? XML parsers are particular about having well formatted XML documents. They wouldn't work for finding a few angle bracket tags sprinkled throughout a text document. – CoderDennis Dec 15 '09 at 17:41
  • OK, I just saw OP's comment on Andrew's answer. These tags happen to look like XML, but this isn't about parsing XML. This is about finding angle bracket delimited text within a mostly plain text document. – CoderDennis Dec 15 '09 at 17:52
  • Possible duplicate of [RegEx match open tags except XHTML self-contained tags](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags) – EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine Jul 13 '17 at 03:39
  • Here is the best ever answer on your question. It have 2302 votes up. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags/1732454#1732454 – Vasyl Boroviak Dec 15 '09 at 21:35

3 Answers3

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You'll get most of what what you want by using the regex /<([^>]*)>/. (No need to escape the angle brackets' as angle brackets aren't special characters in most regex engines, including the .NET engine.) The regex I provided will also capture trailing whitespace and any attributes on the tag--parsing those things reliably is way, way beyond the scope of a reasonable regex.

However, be aware that if you're trying to parse XML/HTML with a regex, that way lies madness

Community
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JSBձոգչ
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  • By answering this question, however, the OP might use this regex (and more regexes) instead of the better methods. Then 2-3 years down the road someone's going to have to maintain it. – Fragsworth Dec 16 '09 at 18:09
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Regexes are the wrong tool for parsing XML. Try using the System.Xml.Linq (XElement) API.

Jay Bazuzi
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Manu
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4

Your regex is using \S+ as the wildcard. In english, this is "a series of one or more characters, none of which is non-whitespace". In other words, when the regex <(?<name>\S+)> is applied to this string: '`, the regex will match the entire string. angle brackets are non-whitespace.

I think what you want is "a series of one or more characters, none of which is an angle bracket".

The regex for that is <(?<name>[^>]+)> .

Ahhh, regular expressions. The language designed to look like cartoon swearing.

Cheeso
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