Regex - Match attribute in a HTML code

Question

I have problem with matching the html attributes (in a various html tags) with regex. To do so, I use the pattern:

myAttr=\"([^']*)\"

HTML snippet:

<img alt="" src="1-p2.jpg" myAttr="http://example.com" class="alignleft" />

it selects text from the myAttr the end /> but I need to select the myAttr="..." ("http://example.com")

score 40 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

40

You have an apostrophe (') inside your character class but you wanted a quote (").

myAttr=\"([^"]*)\"

That said, you really shouldn't be parsing HTML with regexes. (Sorry to link to that answer again. There are other answers to that question that are more of the "if you know what you are doing..." variety. But it is good to be aware of.)

Note that even if you limit your regexing to just attributes you have a lot to consider:

Be careful not to match inside of comments.
Be careful not to match inside of CDATA sections.
What if attributes are bracketed with single quotes instead of double quotes?
What if attributes have no quotes at all?

This is why pre-built, serious parsers are generally called for.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

Community

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answered Oct 06 '11 at 08:38

Ray Toal

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if the attribute value contain \" ,this regex will be wrong such as – xiaoyifang Apr 16 '22 at 07:18
Nice, another good reason not to use regexes here! It is completely the wrong approach. – Ray Toal Apr 17 '22 at 20:13

score 10 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 06 '11 at 08:38

10

The * is a greedy quantifier. You should follow it with a question mark to make it non-greedy:

myAttr=\"([^']*?)\"

answered Oct 06 '11 at 08:38

John Keyes

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Laurent' · Answer 3 · 2011-10-06T08:46:24.983

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If you only want the myAttr parameter value, use this:

"myAttr=\"([^\"]+)\""

edited Oct 06 '11 at 08:46

answered Oct 06 '11 at 08:39

Laurent'

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score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 06 '11 at 08:40

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you can try use that

 myAttr=\"?[\w:\-]+ ?= ?("[^"]+"|'[^']+'|\w+)\"

answered Oct 06 '11 at 08:40

KodeFor.Me

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score -5 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 07 '17 at 09:34

-5

<[^>]*>

Just try this is this help for remove all tag

Example Something

answered Mar 07 '17 at 09:34

user7671441

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Did you read the question? – Toto Mar 07 '17 at 09:39

Regex - Match attribute in a HTML code

5 Answers5

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