CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#regexhtml-tablenon-greedy
steventnorris
steventnorris

Reputation: 5896

Regex Non-Greedy (Lazy)

I'm attempting to non-greedily parse out TD tags. I'm starting with something like this:

<TD>stuff<TD align="right">More stuff<TD align="right>Other stuff<TD>things<TD>more things

I'm using the below as my regex:

Regex.Split(tempS, @"\<TD[.\s]*?\>");

The records return as below:

""
"stuff<TD align="right">More stuff<TD align="right>Other stuff"
"things"
"more things"

Why is it not splitting that first full result (the one starting with "stuff")? How can I adjust the regex to split on all instances of the TD tag with or without parameters?

Upvotes: 41

Views: 34579

Answers (3)

Bastien Vandamme
Bastien Vandamme

Reputation: 18485

From https://regex101.com/

  • * Quantifier — Matches between zero and unlimited times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy)
  • *? Quantifier — Matches between zero and unlimited times, as few times as possible, expanding as needed (lazy)

Upvotes: 19

Chris Seymour
Chris Seymour

Reputation: 85865

The regex you want is <TD[^>]*>:

<     # Match opening tag
TD    # Followed by TD
[^>]* # Followed by anything not a > (zero or more)
>     # Closing tag

Note: . matches anything (including whitespace) so [.\s]*? is redundant and wrong as [.] matches a literal . so use .*?.

Upvotes: 17

Jason
Jason

Reputation: 3960

For non greedy match, try this <TD.*?>

Upvotes: 62

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