Distinguish /< from < in python

Question

I have a pattern that findall the tags in this format, <.* :.*> . From nested tags, I am taking only the child tag. Here I need to distinguish the brackets(< and >) from '/<' and '/>'. Is there any way that I can do this in the same pattern itself?

eg : input string

<testing this> any text </<this is not a tag>any text<this will fail/>>

output:

['<testing this>','</<this is not a tag>','<this will fail/>>']

Any suggestion please let me know.

It looks uncomfortably like you're trying to parse [X]HTML with regex. [Don't.](http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/3001761) Use a parser, it's what they're for! — jonrsharpe, Jul 06 '16 at 09:05
Use backticks \` to surround your code / unformatted snippets. Also, what is your original regex? ` — Ogaday, Jul 06 '16 at 09:12
I updated the input/output formatting (4 spaces).. What is the desired output though? — Aprillion, Jul 06 '16 at 09:14
I used this pattern, `re.findall('\<[^\<.*\>]+\>', input_string)` — Sohn, Jul 06 '16 at 09:23

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 06 '16 at 09:30

1

Use this pattern:

(?<!/)<.*?(?<!/)>

The (?<!/) is a negative lookbehind that assures there is no slash directly to the left of each < or > without actually consuming the character.

Check this pattern out on regex101.com

answered Jul 06 '16 at 09:30

Byte Commander

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Distinguish /< from < in python

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