How to remove a DIV containing other DIVs using a HTML/DOM parser or Xpath

Question

I have a string which contain a DIV tag to remove.
I can recognize the DIV to remove by its parameters (the specific style in this case) that is unique. This DIV contains a lot of HTML inside including other DIVs.

<div style="padding-top: 10px; clear: both; width: 100%;">
    { a lot other divs here}
</div>

How remove it from the string?

EDIT: (Any useful technique is welcome)

EDIT 2: I know about the inconvenience of using ergualr expressions. If you have a solution using regexs is welcome too because is a one-stop parsing process ans the text is very small and the HTML is well-construted (Indeed is XHTML).

EDIT 3: If possible please show an example using a HTML/DOM parser or Xpath or whatever. The problem here is not select data else remove data. Can be done with HTML/DOM parser or Xpath?

Are you wanting the code to physically be deleted or just the divs just hidden? — anjunatl, Jan 27 '12 at 15:23
It is much better to do with using DOMDocument and XPath, easier too. — Dmitri Snytkine, Jan 27 '12 at 15:25

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

1

Never use regexps to parse (or do other things) with HTML. See this Stack Overflow answer why.

Use a XML-Parser for example via the DOM-Tree.

edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

Community

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answered Jan 27 '12 at 15:25

theomega

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 27 '12 at 15:28

Remember that HTML is not a regular language, so it is not possible to parse it using regular expressions. I would recommend using an HTML parser.

You can read more about regular languages here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_language, and on the Chomsky language classification here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky_hierarchy

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 27 '12 at 21:56

XPath is easiest and it works with JQuery. Check on the reference. http://saxon.sourceforge.net/saxon6.5/expressions.html

Since it's based on location(path), you can specify how deep you want to go like how you work with file paths.

You can try stuffs like //{Tag above div}/div

This is different from //div because // doesn't care where to start, it will get all the Divs anywhere in the doc, so your starting tag after // gotta be unique. You can even start from //html and just / down through the DOM tree like entering an address if you want. There shouldn't be that many levels between html and your first div.

How to remove a DIV containing other DIVs using a HTML/DOM parser or Xpath

3 Answers3