Finding text between 2 strings

Question

I am trying to get something between 2 strings in HTML email source code i am using c#. The part of html is:

<td width="200" align="right" valign="top" style="line-height:22px; font-size:20px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color:#636363; text-decoration:none;">

9/7/2018

</td>

i need the date 9/7/2018.i have tried the regex,

color:#636363; text-decoration:none;">(.*?)</td>

This should Capture string between color:#636363; text-decoration:none;"> and </td>. but its not working. i think newline and blank characters are causing problems.

[You can't parse \[X\]HTML with regex](https://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/107625)! — Uwe Keim, Sep 13 '18 at 16:22
Try `color:#636363; text-decoration:none;">([\s\S]*?)` to get rid of new line issues — Rubens Farias, Sep 13 '18 at 16:23
Use [HtmlAgilityPack](http://html-agility-pack.net/). You cannot parse HTML with Regex — maccettura, Sep 13 '18 at 16:32
@RubensFarias this seems to work but there is " causing the pattern error https://imgur.com/a/jCScNpF — Rana Jawad, Sep 13 '18 at 16:45
You can make `.` match newlines with `RegexOptions.Singleline` - [`(?s)color:#636363; text-decoration:none;">(.*?)`](http://regexstorm.net/tester?p=color%3a%23636363%3b+text-decoration%3anone%3b%22%3e%28.*%3f%29%3c%2ftd%3e&i=rif%3b+color%3a%23636363%3b+text-decoration%3anone%3b%22%3e%0d%0a%0d%0a9%2f7%2f2018%0d%0a%0d%0a%3c%2ftd%3e&o=s), but you should parse HTML with a dedicated parser. — Wiktor Stribiżew, Sep 13 '18 at 16:47
Here is also old way coding `var lPos = myString.IndexOf("", 0); int fPos = 0; if (lPos > -1) fPos = myString.LastIndexOf('>', lPos); var result = myString.Substring(fPos + 1, lPos - 1 - fPos); Console.WriteLine(result.Trim());` — T.S., Sep 13 '18 at 16:56

Ajaypayne · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-13T16:48:52.973

0

Okay, so you want this? You did not escape the / in </td> and you needed to add in the new line characters. This should do you nicely

color:#636363; text-decoration:none;\">[\r\n]+(.*?)[\r\n]+<\/td>

edited Sep 13 '18 at 16:48

answered Sep 13 '18 at 16:26

Ajaypayne

517
3
12

its just part of code there are other dates in code too. i need this specific date – Rana Jawad Sep 13 '18 at 16:40
@RanaJawad I have updated my answer for you then. – Ajaypayne Sep 13 '18 at 16:45
Take a look at this https://imgur.com/a/mYeXTWA – Rana Jawad Sep 13 '18 at 16:47
@RanaJawad Simple fix, just escape it. Updated.https://regex101.com/r/tsdJVa/2/ – Ajaypayne Sep 13 '18 at 16:49
this worked just perfect color:#636363; text-decoration:none;\">[\r\n]+(.*?)[\r\n]+ – Rana Jawad Sep 13 '18 at 17:44

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 13 '18 at 16:24

-1

Try below pattern

<td[^>]*>(.*?)</td>

It will ignore all attributes.

answered Sep 13 '18 at 16:24

Arun Kumar

885
5
11

its not usable because there are other td tags too and it is capturing whole text from . tested on regex101 – Rana Jawad Sep 13 '18 at 16:37
I think this is what you have mentioned in your question. Its better if you can share your full html and then specify which part you want to get. – Arun Kumar Sep 13 '18 at 16:41
@ArunKumar it does not matter, Regex is not what you should be using for HTML parsing. Dont encourage it – maccettura Sep 13 '18 at 16:42
@maccettura Totally agree. Better option is to go for HtmlAgilityPack. – Arun Kumar Sep 13 '18 at 16:43

Finding text between 2 strings

2 Answers2