CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#htmlregexstring
KennO
KennO

Reputation: 169

My Regex.Replace doesn't work

hey I am currently trying to replace html in a string. I.e <strong>text</strong> needs to be <b>text</b> etc. (I realize the b tag is considered outdated)

I am aware that I shouldn't use regex to fix this, but this is currently my only option

my code:

//replace strong
text = Regex.Replace(text, "<strong>.*?</strong>", "<b>$1</b>");

//replace em
text = Regex.Replace(text, "<em>.*?</em>", "<i>$1</i>");

the issue here is that the regex replaces the tags and sets the text to $1. how to avoid this? (I'm in C# btw.)

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1422

Answers (3)

Wiktor Stribiżew
Wiktor Stribiżew

Reputation: 627488

You can also consider using:

text = Regex.Replace(text, "<strong>(.*?)</strong>", "<b>$1</b>", RegexOptions.Singleline);

Note that RegexOptions.Singleline is necessary to allow . to match line feed (LF, \x0A) characters, that the . pattern cannot match by default.

Upvotes: 0

daryal
daryal

Reputation: 14929

Note that the following answer is just a workaround; it is better to write a proper regex.

var text = "<strong>asfdweqwe121</strong><em>test</em>";

text = text.Replace("<strong>", "<b>");
text = text.Replace("</strong>", "</b>");
text = text.Replace("<em>", "<i>");
text = text.Replace("</em>", "</i>");

Upvotes: 2

Richard
Richard

Reputation: 109190

The $1 will use the value of the first capture in the match. But you have not specified any capturing groups in the match, so there is nothing for $1 to subtitute.

Use (…) to capture in a regex expression:

text = Regex.Replace(text, "<strong>(.*?)</strong>", "<b>$1</b>");

Upvotes: 5

Related Questions