regular expression for xml format

Question

i'm trying to get two regular expressions for the next xml string:

<string name="mytag1">mycontent1</string>
<string name="mytag2">mycontent2</string>
<string name="mytag3">mycontent3</string>

My first need is to extract all tags, resulting:

mytag1
mytag2
mytag3

The second one is to extract all contents, resulting:

mycontent1
mycontent2
mycontent3

I've tried a lot of regex with no success, any ideas? know that it is a bit tricky... Thanks!!

`([^<>]*)` grab the string you want from index 1 and index 2. Don't parse html files with regex. — Avinash Raj, Mar 10 '15 at 11:33
thx for your answer but i've just tested on an online tester and it results blank... — Billyjoker, Mar 10 '15 at 11:36
If your requirement is extracting data from XML file then regex is a bad idea. Use a XML parser for the job. — RaviH, Mar 10 '15 at 11:36
That's because http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags/1732454#1732454 — Tobia, Mar 10 '15 at 11:37
Here's a tutorial to get you started with XML Parsing in Java: http://www.vogella.com/tutorials/JavaXML/article.html You should really always avoid regex for this type of stuff. XML (and HTML) are not Regular Languages, therefore Regular Expressions aren't the best tool for the job. — JNYRanger, Mar 10 '15 at 13:15

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 10 '15 at 13:10

If the structure of the string tags in your XML is really that flat and easy^[1], you may use regex:

<string name="(mytag\d+)">([^<]*)</string>

The parentheses catch

\1 the name attribute
\2 the content (provided that there is nothing nested in it)

^[1] Normally XML exceeds the power of regex. Regular expressions are good for fast lexicographic analysis, but hopelessly overburdened with recursive languages.

regular expression for xml format

1 Answers1