Java reg expressions

Question

Does anyone know of a regular expression that will parse all of the text not inside tags of an html document and write it out? Even if the html is badly coded with tags that open and do not close on the same line. I am trying to use backreferencing. Here is my code:
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.util.regex.*;
public class parseHTML {
public static void main(String[] args)
try
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("In.txt"));
PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(new FileWriter("Out.txt"));
String aLine = null;
String pattern1 = "<.+>|.*>|<.*(.*)";
Pattern p1 = Pattern.compile(pattern1);
while((aLine = in.readLine()) != null)
Matcher m1 = p1.matcher(aLine);
if(m1.find())
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
m1.appendReplacement(sb, "$1" + "\n");
System.out.print(sb.toString());
out.print(sb.toString());
m1.reset(aLine);
in.close();
out.close();
catch(IOException exception)
exception.printStackTrace();
}

Answer 1

Does anyone know of a regular expression that will
parse all of the text not inside tags of an html
document and write it out?
No. However, I am rather certain that it is notpossible.
ANYTHING is possible with regular expressions, its
just doing it again on different data. Then it gets
complicated.Nope. It is not possible write only a regular expression which will parse a "balanced" expression which goes to any depth. You can write one which goes to a fixed depth but not an arbritrary one. "Balanced" would be defined for example by opening and closing parenthesis. Or html tags.
See "Mastering Regular Expressions" by Jeffery E.F. Fridel, Chap 4, the section on Difficulties and Impossibilities.
Naturally you can write a program, which might even use regular expressions, to do that. But that is not the same.