Regex too greedy Java

Question

I'm trying to retrieve some parts from a single line html string. The Regex I wrote is as follows:

String pattern = "rel=\"bookmark\">(.*?)</a></h2>"

The html line is like:

....rel="bookmark">what I need</a></h2>....rel="bookmark">....rel="bookmark">What I also need</a></h2>....

My Regex has two results:

rel="bookmark">what I need</a>
and
rel="bookmark">....rel="bookmark">What I also need</a></h2>

How can I tell it to be less greedy for the second result?

[Related question of yours](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32191573/regex-multiple-occurrences-in-one-line). Look, you have HTML and you are using a regex. And you ask one question after another. Conclusion: Use an HTML parser. ["Regex is not the best tool for that task."](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/701166/can-you-provide-some-examples-of-why-it-is-hard-to-parse-xml-and-html-with-a-reg). — Wiktor Stribiżew, Aug 25 '15 at 08:50
I think you should get an appropriate answer for your original question. — Wiktor Stribiżew, Aug 25 '15 at 08:55
Even though I should be better off with an HTML parser, my question still remains how you would be less greedy in Regex. — Jasper Catthoor, Aug 25 '15 at 09:08

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 25 '15 at 09:13

2

Between tags are the things does not contains < and >

String pattern = "rel=\"bookmark\">[^<>]+</a>";

answered Aug 25 '15 at 09:13

HungPV

1 Answers1