regexp question + html::parser question on the side

[boris bass]

i am trying to scan the html file for all the anchor tags and the
following regex


while ( $content =~ /<\s*a\s+.*?>/s )


doesn't seem to work , what is wrong here?

angle brackets don't need to be escaped, do they?

obviously, the string i am trying to match is

<a href="something">

but i get no match


ps. this could probably be done via HTML:arser module and not
through the regular expressions.

the task i am trying to accomplish: find

<a href="something">

and change it to

<a href="">

i.e. delete a link to whatever and leave an empty string in place of
it.

if somebody could post a code snippet how to do it would also be
appreciated. doesn't have to be tested, just to point me at the right
direction. i looked at html:arser doc page, but i haven't figured it
out on my own


thanks,


boris

 

[Anno Siegel]

i am trying to scan the html file for all the anchor tags and the
following regex


while ( $content =~ /<\s*a\s+.*?>/s )


doesn't seem to work , what is wrong here?

angle brackets don't need to be escaped, do they?

obviously, the string i am trying to match is

<a href="something">

but i get no match

I do. *shrug*

ps. this could probably be done via HTML:arser module and not
through the regular expressions.

Yes.

Anno

 

[gisle]

ps. this could probably be done via HTML:arser module and not
through the regular expressions.

the task i am trying to accomplish: find

<a href="something">

and change it to

<a href="">

i.e. delete a link to whatever and leave an empty string in place of
it.

http://search.cpan.org/src/GAAS/HTML-Parser-3.31/eg/hrefsub is an
example of some code that can do this (and more).

 

[David K. Wall]

if somebody could post a code snippet how to do it would also be
appreciated. doesn't have to be tested, just to point me at the
right direction. i looked at html:arser doc page, but i haven't
figured it out on my own

If HTML:arser seems weird, try HTML::TokeParser. It may seem more
intuitive.

 

[Bob Walton]

i am trying to scan the html file for all the anchor tags and the
following regex


while ( $content =~ /<\s*a\s+.*?>/s )


doesn't seem to work , what is wrong here?

Mostly you need the g and the i switches. The g switch so you don't
generate an infinite loop on the first match, and the i switch so you
match something like <A href="xxx">. Example:

{local $/;$content=<DATA>}
while($content=~/<\s*a\s+.*?>/sgi){print "matched $&\n"}
__END__
some html <a href="sdflkj"> and <A href="sflkjwer"> and< a
href="werlkj" > and <a href="sdlfkj">

And note that that will not perform perfectly due to the possibility of
stuff like maybe <img src="xxx" alt="<a b c d>"> etc etc in the HTML.
For 100% performance, use one of the HTML parsers.


....