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help with substitution of unclosed html tags

awebb
New User

Aug 23, 2007, 2:12 AM

Post #1 of 3 (1288 views)

help with substitution of unclosed html tags	Can't Post

Hello, I have been trying to convert a HTML list like the one below to a ordered series of lines but I am having trouble finding the right regex to do the job.

I need to convert this:

Code

<ul> <li>first item <li>second item <li>third item <li>fourth item <li>fifth item </ul>

to this:

1. first item
2. second item
3. third item
4. fourth item
5. fifth item

I have been trying something like the regex below:

Code

my $count = 1; 
$count++ while ($html =~ s{<li.*>(.+)\s*(?= (<li.*>|</ul>))}{$count\. $1\n}ig);

but I keep getting only the last item to output. I would really be greatful to anyone who could tell me exactly where I am screwing things up.

KevinR
Veteran

Aug 23, 2007, 12:08 PM

Post #2 of 3 (1285 views)

Re: [awebb] help with substitution of unclosed html tags [In reply to]	Can't Post

Most likely the problem is the greedy pattern match '.*' in <li.*>, change it to <li.*?> and it might help. Here isanother possible way to do what I think you are trying to do:

Code

$html = '<ul> <li>first item <li>second item <li>third item <li>fourth item <li>fifth item </ul>'; 
my $count = 1;  
$html =~ s{(?:<li>)([^<]+)}{$count++ . ". $1\n"}eig; 
$html =~ s{</?ul>}{}g; 
print $html;

might need some further tweaking
-------------------------------------------------

awebb
New User

Aug 23, 2007, 2:20 PM

Post #3 of 3 (1282 views)

Re: [KevinR] help with substitution of unclosed html tags [In reply to]	Can't Post

Thanks for your help Kevin, but I managed to fix the problem last night shortly after posting this forum topic. It turns out that the .* was greedy like you said. I fixed the problem with the regex below if anybody ever runs into the same kind of problem.

Code

my $count = 1; 
$count++ while ($html =~ s{[ \t]*<li>([^<>]+)(?= <li>|</ul>)}{$count\. $1\n}i);

I have not tried your approach yet but it may be more efficient. It looks to me like it should work. In fact I think I like the way you accomplished the task better than mine.

(This post was edited by awebb on Aug 23, 2007, 2:27 PM)

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