Regex doesn`t find matches

Question

I am fairly new to using regex and am trying to find the following text :

<div class="name">

    <a href="/rd/?S=1401191307481569663391991831690328817&I=&DS=42639&T=55&U=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spokeo.com%2Fmapview%2Fperson%2F18643819031%3Fpx%3D%26piplstart%3D%26q%3DJoe%2BHenderson%2C%2BPhoenix%2C%2BAZ%26g%3Dname_piplv2_scd_city01&P=">
        <span class="highlight"> … </span>

         T 

        <span class="highlight"> … </span>

        , E Flower St, 

        <span class="highlight"> … </span>

        , 

        <span class="highlight"> … </span>

        , 

        <span class="highlight"> … </span>

        , 50 years old

    </a>

</div>
<div class="url">

    www.spokeo.com/mapview/person/18643819031?px=&piplstart=&q=Joe+Hend...

</div>

The expression I came up with is :

("<div class=\"name\">[\S\s]+</div><div class=\"url\">[\S\s]+</div>")

However no matches are found. Any help is appreciated.

[Obligatory Cthulhu reference](http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/1223693). Don't parse HTML with regex; use a proper HTML parser. — tckmn, Jan 19 '14 at 14:11
What language or tool are you using? Regex isn't universally the same. — Bernhard Barker, Jan 19 '14 at 14:12
@Peter Lazarov: No seriously, don't do it. Use a real parser. — grebneke, Jan 19 '14 at 14:14
@PeterLazarov Then use a Python HTML parsing library, like BeautifulSoup. Do NOT parse HTML with regex. — tckmn, Jan 19 '14 at 14:15
Is there a reason HTML parsing using regex is so frowned upon? — Peter Lazarov, Jan 19 '14 at 14:16
HTML is not a regular language and is impossible to parse with regex. Consider how you would parse `
`? — tckmn, Jan 19 '14 at 14:19

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:28

0

You have a new line here:

</div>
<div class="url">

But you don't have one in your regex:

         |
         V
...</div><div...

Try adding \s* there (well assuming \s includes new lines in Python, and the div's actually always follow on one another with nothing but whitespace in between).

But, as already mentioned, using regex to parse HTML is playing with fire.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:28

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answered Jan 19 '14 at 14:15

Bernhard Barker

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Regex doesn`t find matches

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