Quick help with a regex

Question

I'm trying to use a regex but somehow it won't work. I've used a similar string in the past and it worked without problems.

old: (?<=(<img(.+)src=(.+)images(.+)statusicon/(.+)alt=\"))(.+)(?=( is(.+)line\")) new: (?<=(<span class=\"date\">))(.+)(?=(<span class=\"time\">))

I want it to find the date...

input:

<span class="postdate old">
    <span class="date">27.03.11 <span class="time">15:04</span></span>
</span>
<span class="nodecontrols">

"It used to work, but now it doesn't" doesn't tell us anything about the problem. — CrayonViolent, May 12 '11 at 13:43
But you aren't telling us what it's supposed to be matching. — CrayonViolent, May 12 '11 at 13:45
Suggest removing all the unneeded code in your question, and focus on the relevant code. Make it easy for answerers to get to the root of your problem. It's FAR too much code to consider; which line is the regex actually being called? — p.campbell, May 12 '11 at 13:45
I'd suggest that you check the accepted answer to this question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags — Paolo Tedesco, May 12 '11 at 13:46
Your date is in group 2 [http://regexr.com?2tobk](http://regexr.com?2tobk) — stema, May 12 '11 at 13:50

CrayonViolent · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-12T13:58:27.983

2

Okay based on your cleaned up OP, your new pattern works, date is just in group 2. But here is a cleaned up regex (and it's in group 1)

<span class="date">((?:(?!<span).)+)

or even

<span class="date">([^<]+)

edited May 12 '11 at 13:58

answered May 12 '11 at 13:53

CrayonViolent

32,111
5
56
79

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 12 '11 at 13:53

1

Aren't token separated by a space ? Meaning that

<span class="date">27.03.11 <span class="time">15:04

isn't recognized because the string is not ended ? Does it work on

<span class="date">27.03.11 <span class="time"> 15:04

answered May 12 '11 at 13:53

djfoxmccloud

571
1
9
23

Quick help with a regex

2 Answers2