Losing the plot on C# Regex

[funkyd]

I have no idea what you are doing but it looks fantastic!

[TheMonkey]

What is this fascination with writing obscure, arcane, unreadable, unsupportable, unextendable, unfixable code?

For me, the genius is the man that can take a problem and express the solution in the simplest and most understandable way that makes extending the idea fast (and therefore cheap).

But does SFA for contract security!

[DimPrawn]

What is this fascination with writing obscure, arcane, unreadable, unsupportable, unextendable, unfixable code?

For me, the genius is the man that can take a problem and express the solution in the simplest and most understandable way that makes extending the idea fast (and therefore cheap).

[DaveB]

Or postscript as well. The following program runs in a postscript and perl interpreter:

http://perl.plover.com/obfuscated/bestever.pl

Insane!

Postscript is a language best left to the masochistic or the insane

[TheMonkey]

Or a Perl Programmer, for when you really want to confuse people

Or postscript as well. The following program runs in a postscript and perl interpreter:

http://perl.plover.com/obfuscated/bestever.pl

Insane!

[DaveB]

Indeed, and I'll second that, regex is definately a black art which you'd have to be a C programmer to fully understand.

Or a Perl Programmer, for when you really want to confuse people

[TheMonkey]

Indeed, and I'll second that, regex is definately a black art which you'd have to be a C programmer to fully understand.

I'm a C guy too! I think there may be a pattern you have discovered. Something to do with obfuscatable languages... Hmm I'm also a Perl guy. This gets deeper.

[Joe Black]

that's what i was suggesting. mercifully, life is far too short to spend time on the black art of reg exps...

Indeed, and I'll second that, regex is definately a black art which you'd have to be a C programmer to fully understand.

[TheMonkey]

that's what i was suggesting. mercifully, life is far too short to spend time on the black art of reg exps...

Indeed - which is a good thing because I get paid a lot to maintain them after I've written them

[scotspine]

that's what i was suggesting. mercifully, life is far too short to spend time on the black art of reg exps...

[DimPrawn]

Solved - I think!

Looks like I might have it by doing it in two chunks.

Find all links in HTML:

_regex = new Regex(@"(?<linkhtml><a[\s]+[^>]*?href[\s]?=[\s\""\']+(?<href>.*?)[\""\']+.*?>)(?<linktext>[^<]+|.*?)?<\/a>", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.Compiled |RegexOptions.Multiline); 

Then stick the linkhtml group into a 2nd regex:

_regxAttributes = new Regex("(?<name>\\b\\w+\\b)\\s*=\\s*(\"(?<value>[^\"]*)\"|'(?<value>[^']*)'|(?<value>\" + [^\"\"'<> \\s]+)\\s*)+",
                RegexOptions.Singleline | RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.Compiled); 

To get all the attributes as name and value pairs.

If anyone knows how to capture every hyperlink in the HTML and capture all the attributes in one step I'd be pleased to know.

Cheers,

DP

[DimPrawn]

I'm trying to match and capture all the main link attributes, href, title, rel, class in any order in any combination along with any other valid HTML attribute.

Any ideas?

[scotspine]

this works

Regex regex = new Regex(@"(<a\s+)*title\s*=\s*(?:""|')(?<title>[^'""]*)(?:""|')", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);

[DimPrawn]

Hi peeps,

I wonder if any of you .NET guys could try and figure out why my regex works in several tools, but when put into C# it fails?

string    input = @"<a href=""http://www.thisisthedomain.com/"" class='big one' title=""testing & fixing & failing"">text here - More Text - some more</a>";

// Parse HTML for other attributes
Regex regex = new Regex(@"(<a\s+)*title\s*=\s*(?:""|')(?<title>[^'""]*)(?:""|')|class\s*=\s*(?:""|')(?<class>[^'""]*)(?:""|')|href\s*=\s*(?:""|')(?<href>[^'""]*)(?:""|')|rel\s*=\s*(?:""|')(?<rel>[^'""]*)(?:""|')", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);

Match match = _regex.Match(input);

// Fetch named groups
_rel = match.Groups["rel"].Value;
_href = match.Groups["href"].Value;
_title = match.Groups["title"].Value;
_class = match.Groups["class"].Value; 

Using RegExBuddy, Rad software Regular Expression Designer, Sells Brothers RegExDesigner.NET I can match the "title" group, but my C# fails to (although it gets the "href".

Using 1.1 of the Framework.

If anyone can see what's going wrong I'd be really chuffed.

Cheers,

DP