Use Regular Expressions to remove open/close anchor tags but leave the text contained within alone

I have a large file with lots of anchor tags. Many of the anchor tags have no HREF specified and do nothing. They aren't hurting anything, either, but I'd like to get rid of them, leaving the anchor tags that do have HREF alone, and leaving the text between the tags alone. Here's an example: <a>A resident or municipality may seek to vacate 25.01.01</a>.
I've come up with this to identify those tags: <\a>(.)*</\a> and it works, it finds them, but what should I put in the Replace area in order to remove the open/close tags but leave the text as it is?

I'm a reg ex idiot. So I use the Search Specific Tag feature whenever I can. See screenshot, hit Replace All. But please do this on a backed-up document to be sure it does what you want.
Nancy O.

Similar Messages

Using Regular Expressions To Remove Characters JDK 1.4

I want to write a regular expression to remove all commas in a string of text.
string is:
1,000
or 1,000,000
I want it to return 1000 and 1000000.
I have tried some but I am just starting with Regular Expressions.
Please Help!

Try this tutorial: Linux : Education : Tutorials
Using regular expressions
David Mertz
President, Gnosis Software, Inc.
September 2000
http://www-105.ibm.com/developerworks/education.nsf/linux-onlinecourse-bytitle/6C2B4863702F592B8625696200589C5B?OpenDocument

Regular Expression to remove space in HTML Tag

Hello All,
My HTML string is like below.
select '<CityName>RICHMOND</CityName>
<StateCd>ABCD CDE
<StateCd/>
<CtryCd>CAN</CtryCd>
<CtrySubDivCd>BC</CtrySubDivCd>' Str from dual
Desired Output is
<CityName>RICHMOND</CityName><StateCd>ABCD CDE
<StateCd/><CtryCd>CAN</CtryCd><CtrySubDivCd>BC</CtrySubDivCd>
i.e. want to remove those spaces from tag value area having only spaces otherwise leave as it is. Please help to implement the same using Regular expression.

Hi,
It's unclear what you want. This site seems to be formatting your message in some odd way.
Post a statement like
SELECT '...' FROM dual;
without any formatting, to show your input, and post the exact output you want friom that, with as little formatting as possible. It might help if you use some character like ~ instead of spaces (just for posting; we'll find a solution that works for spaces).
To remove the text that consists of spaces and nothing else between the tags, you can say
REGEXP_REPLACE ( str
, '> +<'
, '><'
How is this string being generated? Maybe there's some easier, more efficient way to keep the bad sub-wrtings out of the string in the first place.

Using Regular Expressions to replace Quotes in Strings

I am writing a program that generates Java files and there are Strings that are used that contain Quotes. I want to use regular expressions to replace " with \" when it is written to the file. The code I was trying to use was:
String temp = "\"Hello\" i am a \"variable\"";
temp = temp.replaceAll("\"","\\\\\"");
however, this does not work and when i print out the code to the file the resulting code appears as:
String someVar = ""Hello" i am a "variable"";
and not as:
String someVar = "\"Hello\" i am a \"variable\"";
I am assumming my regular expression is wrong. If it is, could someone explain to me how to fix it so that it will work?
Thanks in advance.

Thanks, appearently I'm just doing something weird that I just need to look at a little bit harder.

Trying to use regular expressions to convert names to Title Case

I'm trying to change names to their proper case for most common names in North America (esp. the U.S.).
Some examples are in the comments of the included code below.
My problem is that *retName = retName.replaceAll("( [^ ])([^ ]+)", "$1".toUpperCase() + "$2");* does not work as I expect. It seems that the toUpperCase method call does not actually do anything to the identified group.
Everything else works as I expect.
I'm hoping that I do not have to iterate through each character of the string, upshifting the characters that follow spaces.
Any help from you RegEx experts will be appreciated.
{code}
* Converts names in some random case into proper Name Case. This method does not have the
* extra processing that would be necessary to convert street addresses.
* This method does not add or remove punctuation.
* Examples:
* DAN MARINO --> Dan Marino
* old macdonald --> Old Macdonald <-- Can't capitalize the 'D" because of Ernst Mach
* ROY BLOUNT, JR. --> Roy Blount, Jr.
* CAROL mosely-BrAuN --> Carol Mosely-Braun
* Tom Jones --> Tom Jones
* ST.LOUIS --> St. Louis
* ST.LOUIS, MO --> St. Louis, Mo <-- Avoid City Names plus State Codes
* This is a work in progress that will need to be updated as new exceptions are found.
public static String toNameCase(String name) {
* Basic plan:
* 1. Strategically create double spaces in front of characters to be capitalized
* 2. Capitalize characters with preceding spaces
* 3. Remove double spaces.
// Make the string all lower case
String retName = name.trim().toLowerCase();
// Collapse strings of spaces to single spaces
retName = retName.replaceAll("[ ]+", " ");
// "mc" names
retName = retName.replaceAll("( mc)", " $1");
// Ensure there is one space after periods and commas
retName = retName.replaceAll("(\\.|,)([^ ])", "$1 $2");
// Add 2 spaces after periods, commas, hyphens and apostrophes
retName = retName.replaceAll("(\\.|,|-|')", "$1 ");
// Add a double space to the front of the string
retName = " " + retName;
// Upshift each character that is preceded by a space
// For some reason this doesn't work
retName = retName.replaceAll("( [^ ])([^ ]+)", "$1".toUpperCase() + "$2");
// Remove double spaces
retName = retName.replaceAll(" ", "");
return retName;
Edited by: FuzzyBunnyFeet on Jan 17, 2011 10:56 AM
Edited by: FuzzyBunnyFeet on Jan 17, 2011 10:57 AM

Hopefully someone will still be able to provide a RegEx solution, but until that time here is a working method.
Also, if people have suggestions of other rules for letter capitalization in names, I am interested in those too.
* Converts names in some random case into proper Name Case. This method does not have the
* extra processing that would be necessary to convert street addresses.
* This method does not add or remove punctuation.
* Examples:
* CAROL mosely-BrAuN --> Carol Mosely-Braun
* carol o'connor --> Carol O'Connor
* DAN MARINO --> Dan Marino
* eD mCmAHON --> Ed McMahon
* joe amcode --> Joe Amcode <-- Embedded "mc"
* mr.t --> Mr. T <-- Inserted space
* OLD MACDONALD --> Old Macdonald <-- Can't capitalize the 'D" because of Ernst Mach
* old mac donald --> Old Mac Donald
* ROY BLOUNT,JR. --> Roy Blount, Jr.
* ST.LOUIS --> St. Louis
* ST.LOUIS,MO --> St. Louis, Mo <-- Avoid City Names plus State Codes
* Tom Jones --> Tom Jones
* This is a work in progress that will need to be updated as new exceptions are found.
public static String toNameCase(String name) {
 * Basic plan:
 * 1. Strategically create double spaces in front of characters to be capitalized
 * 2. Capitalize characters with preceding spaces
 * 3. Remove double spaces.
 // Make the string all lower case
 String workStr = name.trim().toLowerCase();
 // Collapse strings of spaces to single spaces
 workStr = workStr.replaceAll("[ ]+", " ");
 // "mc" names
 workStr = workStr.replaceAll("( mc)", " $1 ");
 // Ensure there is one space after periods and commas
 workStr = workStr.replaceAll("(\\.|,)([^ ])", "$1 $2");
 // Add 2 spaces after periods, commas, hyphens and apostrophes
 workStr = workStr.replaceAll("(\\.|,|-|')", "$1 ");
 // Add a double space to the front of the string
 workStr = " " + workStr;
 // Upshift each character that is preceded by a space and remove double spaces
 // Can't upshift using regular expressions and String methods
 // workStr = workStr.replaceAll("( [^ ])([^ ]+)", "$1"toUpperCase() + "$2");
 StringBuilder titleCase = new StringBuilder();
 for (int i = 0; i < workStr.length(); i++) {
 if (workStr.charAt(i) == ' ') {
 if (workStr.charAt(i+1) == ' ') {
 i += 2;
 while (i < workStr.length() && workStr.charAt(i) == ' ') {
 titleCase.append(workStr.charAt(i++));
 if (i < workStr.length()) {
 titleCase.append(workStr.substring(i, i+1).toUpperCase());
 } else {
 titleCase.append(workStr.charAt(i));
 return titleCase.toString();
{code}

Using regular expressions to get a customized output

Hi,
I have a string/varchar variable with the data ',a,b,c,' in it.
I want the display as follows:
a
b
c
I would like to get the similar output using regular expressions.
How do I get this output using REGEXP_REPLACE or REGEXP_SUBSTR?
Please do the needful.
Thanks & Regards,
Rakshit

I remember that, however if we look closer, that one has a little flaw: The 2nd row should be null, because ",," indicates an empy field. The MODEL clause solution works just fine in this case:
with t as (select 'aaaa,,bbbb,cccc,dddd,eeee,ffff' col1 from dual)
-- end of sample data
SELECT col_new
FROM t
MODEL
 PARTITION BY (ROWNUM rn)
 DIMENSION BY (0 dim)
 MEASURES(col1, col1 col_new)
 RULES ITERATE(99) UNTIL (ITERATION_NUMBER = LENGTH(REGEXP_REPLACE(col1[0], '[^,]')))
 (col_new[ITERATION_NUMBER] = REPLACE(REGEXP_SUBSTR(col1[0], '(^|,)[^,]*', 1, ITERATION_NUMBER+1), ','))
COL_NEW
aaaa
bbbb
cccc
dddd
eeee
ffff
7 Zeilen ausgewählt.Update: I had this nagging feeling that I missed something, and there it was. If you want to see what the problem with my solution is, change the example to
with t as (select ',aaaa,,bbbb,cccc,dddd,eeee,ffff' col1 from dual)So I went back and tried to fix BlueShadows approach. Here it is:
with t as (select 'aaaa,,bbbb,cccc,dddd,eeee,ffff' txt from dual)
-- end of sample data
SELECT REPLACE(REGEXP_SUBSTR(',' || txt, ',[^,]*', 1, level), ',') col_new
FROM t
CONNECT BY level <= length(regexp_replace(txt,'[^,]*'))+1
;C.

Regular Expression for Removing a space after the a... tag?

Hi there,
I'm fairly new to using Regular Expressions, but am in need of one that will help me find all <a...> tags that have a space immediately following that tag and replace it with the exact same tag, but no space following the <a...> tag.
So, for example, a regular expression that will find:
<a href="somelink.html"> Somelink</a>
as well as:
<a href="#" onmouseout="MM_swapImgRestore()" onmouseover="MM_swapImage('sub-nav_button_professional_portal','','images/sub-nav_button_ professional_portal_f2.png',1)"> Somelink</a>
And just remove the space appearing as part of the hyperlink. Does anyone know how to accomplish this?

Thought of that, but it would remove spaces from crucial areas of my pages. For example, conditional logic within a script, like:
for (i = 0; i > (a.length - 2); i += 3)
would become:
for (i = 0; i >(a.length - 2); i += 3)
While that wouldn't pose a huge problem, I'm messing up the syntax in order to fix something else, which is why I wanted to go the route of a regular expression. I need to replace all "<a ...> " (space included) tags with "<a ...>" and make sure that the properties within the <a> tag stay in tact.

Finding URLs using regular expression.

I have an requirement where user will type some text containing URLs like "Please visit this site http://www.google.com/e/qHvQcWco`~!@#$%^&*()-7747. Thank you". This text has to be modified as below before saving it to the database.
"Please visit this site <a href='http://www.google.com/e/qHvQcWco`~!@#$%^&*()-7747'>http://www.google.com/e/qHvQcWco`~!@#$%^&*()-7747</a>. Thank you"
I am using regular expression (http|https)://.+?\\s which marks the end of the url with a white space character.This pattern doesn't work if the URL is located at the end of the string since there will be no space at the end.
For example if the string is "Please visit this site http://www.google.com/e/qHvQcWco`~!@#$%^&*()-7747" the regex will fail.
My acutal problem is to find the URL irrespective its position within the string.
Pattern urlPattern = Pattern.compile("(http|https)://.+?\\s", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE);
Matcher matcher = urlPattern.matcher(plainText);
Map stringIndexMap = new HashMap();
//Searching the input string for urlPattern...
while(matcher.find()) {
String urlString = matcher.group();
//Storing the urls in a hashmap with their indices as keys....
stringIndexMap.put(new Integer(matcher.start()), urlString.trim());
Set keySet = stringIndexMap.keySet();
Iterator it = keySet.iterator();
//Iterating over the hashmap containing urls...
while(it.hasNext()) {
String urlString = (String) stringIndexMap.get(it.next());
* Replacing the url string in the input text with <a href="#" onclick="window.open('<urlString>')"
* using String index
clickableURLString.replace(clickableURLString.indexOf(urlString),
clickableURLString.indexOf(urlString) + urlString.length(),
"<a href=\"#\" onclick=\"window.open('" + urlString
+ "')\">" + urlString + "</a>");
return clickableURLString.toString();

The end of the input is '$' as a regex.
import java.util.regex.*;
public class Prasanna{
public static void main(String[] args){
 String text
= "Please visit this site http://www.google.com/e/qHvQcWco`~!@#$%^&*()-7747";
// String regex = "(http|https)://.+?(?:\\s|$)"; // this works
 String regex = "(http|https)://[^ ]+"; // this also works
 Pattern pat = Pattern.compile(regex, Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE);
 Matcher mat = pat.matcher(text);
 while (mat.find()){
 System.out.println(mat.group());
}

Validate cfinput using regular expression

Hi,
can somebody help me valditing an cfinput field using regular expressions?
First digit must be a number or "R".
Digit 2-15 can be everything without special characters. Digit 2-15 can also be empty.
I try this, but it doesn't work (Sorry I'm a beginner using regex).
<cfinput type="text" name="field1" required="yes" validate="regular_expression" pattern="[0-9Rr][0-9a-zA-Z]*" maxlength="15">
Thank you in advice!
Claudia

You haven't told your regex to match the entire string, so it will "pass"
any string that has your match anywhere within it, so like as long as it's
got an R or a digit in it: it's OK.
To tell it to match the entire string, anchor it to the start and end of the
string with ^ and $ respectively.
Regular expression syntax: Using special characters
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Developing/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbec0a38f -7ffb.html#WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbec0a38f-7fef
Adam

Help in query using regular expression

HI,
I need a help to get the below output using regular expression query. Please help me.
SELECT REGEXP_SUBSTR ('PWRPKG(P/W+P/L+CC)', '[^+]+', 1, lvl) val, lvl
FROM DUAL,(SELECT LEVEL lvl FROM DUAL
CONNECT BY LEVEL <=(SELECT MAX ( LENGTH ('PWRPKG(P/W+P/L+CC)') - LENGTH (REPLACE ('PWRPKG(P/W+P/L+CC)','+',NULL))+ 1) FROM DUAL));
I need the output as
correct result:
==============
val lvl
P/W 1
P/L 2
CC 3
But i tried the above it is not coming the above result. Please help me where i did a mistake.
Thanks in advance

Frank gave you a solution in your other thread. You could simplify it if you are on 11g:
SQL> select * from table_x
2 /
TXT
TECHPKG(INTELLI CC+FRT SONAR)
PWRPKG(P/W+P/L+CC)
select txt,
 regexp_substr(
 txt,
 '(.*\()*([^+)]+)',
 1,
 column_value,
 null,
 2
 ) element,
 column_value element_number
from table_x,
 table(
 cast(
 multiset(
 select level
 from dual
 connect by level <= regexp_count(txt,'\+') + 1
 as sys.OdciNumberList
order by rowid,
 column_value
TXT ELEMENT ELEMENT_NUMBER
TECHPKG(INTELLI CC+FRT SONAR) INTELLI CC 1
TECHPKG(INTELLI CC+FRT SONAR) FRT SONAR 2
PWRPKG(P/W+P/L+CC) P/W 1
PWRPKG(P/W+P/L+CC) P/L 2
PWRPKG(P/W+P/L+CC) CC 3
SQL> SY.

Rplacing space with &nbsb; in html using regular expressions

Hi
I want to replace space with &nbsb; in HTML.
I used the below method to replace space in my html file.
var spacePattern11:RegExp =/(\s)/g;
str= str.replace(spacePattern," "
Here str varaible contains below html file.In this html file i want to replace space present between " What number does this represents" with &nbsb;
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head>
<body>
<TEXTFORMAT LEADING="2"></TEXTFORMAT><TEXTFORMAT LEADING="2"> What number does this Roman numeral represents MDCCCXVIII ?</TEXTFORMAT>
</body>
</html>
But by using the above regular expression i am getting like this.
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head><body>
<TEXTFORMAT LEADING="2"></TEXTFORMAT><TEXTFORMAT LEADING="2"> What number does this represents</TEXTFORMAT>
</body>
</html>
Here what happening means it was replacing space with &nbsb; in HTML tags also.But want to replace space with &nbsb; present in the outside of the HTML tags.I want like this using regular expressions in FLEX
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head>
<body>What number does this represents</body>
</html>
Hi,Please give me the solution to slove the above problem using regular expressions
Thanks in Advance to all
Regards
ssssssss

sorry i missed some information in above,The modified information was in red color
Hi
I want to replace space with &nbsb; in HTML.
I used the below method to replace space in my html file.
var spacePattern11:RegExp =/(\s)/g;
str= str.replace(spacePattern," "
Here str varaible contains below html file.In this html file i want to replace space present between " What number does this represents" with &nbsb;
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head>
<body>
<TEXTFORMAT LEADING="2"></TEXTFORMAT><TEXTFORMAT LEADING="2"> What number does this Roman numeral represents MDCCCXVIII ?</TEXTFORMAT>
</body>
</html>
But by using the above regular expression i am getting like this.
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head><body>
<TEXTFORMAT LEADING="2"></TEXTFORMAT><TEXTFORMAT LEADIN G="2"> What number does this represents</TEXTFORMAT>
</body>
</html>
Here what happening means it was replacing space with &nbsb; in HTML tags also.But want to replace space with &nbsb; present in the outside of the HTML tags.I want like this using regular expressions in FLEX
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head>
<body>What&nbsb;number&nbsb;does&nbsb;this&nbsb;represents</body>
</html>
Hi,Please give me the solution to slove the above problem using regular expressions
Thanks in Advance to all
Regards
ssssssss

Can I use regular expressions in Java 1.3

Hi,
Dose Java 1.3 suport regular expressions?
How can I use it?
Thanks.
bevin ye

The 1.3 core API doesn't support regular expressions. Hint: There's an item "Since:" in the JavaDoc of most classes that indicates the version it was initially available. If you look it up in the JavaDoc of java.util.regex.Pattern you'll notice that it's value is 1.4.
But there are several third party libraries that implement regular expressions, 'though I've not used them extensivly, so I can't tell you which one's the most usefull.

Using regular expressions in java

Does anyone of you know a good source or a tutorial for using regular expressions in java.
I just want to look at some examples....
Thanks

thanks a lot... i have one more query
Boundary matchers
^      The beginning of a line
$      The end of a line
\b      A word boundary
\B      A non-word boundary
\A      The beginning of the input
\G      The end of the previous match
\Z      The end of the input but for the final terminator, if any
\z      The end of the input
if i want to use the $ for comparing with string(text) then how can i use it.
Eg if it is $120 i got a hit
but if its other than that if should not hit.

Using Regular Expressions in Numbers 09?

Is there any way to use regular expressions in Numbers 09 in Find & Replace?

kilowattradio wrote:
Is there any way to use regular expressions in Numbers 09 in Find & Replace?
NO !
_Go to "Provide Numbers Feedback" in the "Numbers" menu_, describe what you wish.
Then, cross your fingers, and wait _at least_ for iWork'10
Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) vendredi 25 septembre 2009 14:49:49

Changeparticular characters in a string by using regular expressions ...

Hello Everyone,
I am trying to write a function by using oracles regular expression function REGEXP_REPLACE but I could not succed till now.
My problem as follows, I have a text in a column for example let say 'sdfsdf Sdfdfs Sdfd' I want replace all s and S characters with X and make the text look like 'XdfXdf XdfdfX Xdfd'.
Is it possible by using regular expressions in oracle ?
Can you give me some clues ?
Thank you

SSU wrote:
Hello Everyone,
I am trying to write a function by using oracles regular expression function REGEXP_REPLACE but I could not succed till now.
My problem as follows, I have a text in a column for example let say 'sdfsdf Sdfdfs Sdfd' I want replace all s and S characters with X and make the text look like 'XdfXdf XdfdfX Xdfd'.
Is it possible by using regular expressions in oracle ?
Can you give me some clues ?
Thank you
SQL> SELECT
2 regexp_replace('sdfsdf Sdfdfs Sdfd','s|S','X') from dual;
REGEXP_REPLACE('SD
XdfXdf XdfdfX XdfdRegards,
Achyut

Use Regular Expressions to remove open/close anchor tags but leave the text contained within alone

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