CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptregex
Marck
Marck

Reputation: 65

JS extract text between brackets tags

I searched and searched, but I just can't seem to find the correct answer, so I'm asking it here (regexp newbie).

I'm trying to extract the value include this between the following:

[tag1]include this [tag1]

I only want to get the value "include this" as an result. To make this more complex, the regex needs to look at the value tag1, because I got more than one of those brackets in the same body. To top it: the tekst on multiple lines has to be included.

So far, I tried the following single line regexp (can only use single line regexp): 

(?!\[?.*\]).*(?=\{\/?.*\})

and 

(\[[^\]]+\](?!\s)([\w']+)(?!\])\b|(?:^|\s)([\w']+)(?!\])\b)

These two both seem to do the trick for the first part (extract only the text "include this" between the tags, but he doesn't look at the part [tag1]. So in short: i'm looking for a regexp which can extract the value "include this" while looking at the inside of the brackets, the "tag1".

I'm feeling real close, but now i'm stuck.

Please help?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 682

Answers (5)

mtanti
mtanti

Reputation: 834

If you want all text between two "tag1" tags do this

(?<=\[tag1\])(.|\r|\n)*?(?=\[/?tag1\])

If you want all text between matching tags do this

(?<=\[([a-z0-9]+)\])(.|\r|\n)*?(?=\[/?\2\])

Upvotes: 1

ruffin
ruffin

Reputation: 17453

Or don't use regexp, which is what I usually do when the regexp "won't behave"[1] and what you're doing is pretty straight forward. (I realize your question explicitly asked for regexp, but hopefully this is potentially helpful.)

function parseTags(str)
{
    var indexNext,
        arrayOut = [];

    while (str.indexOf("[tag1]") >= 0)
    {
        str = str.substring(str.indexOf("[tag1]") + 6);

        // What do you want to do if a tag's missing?
        // Skipping the end tag-less "match" for now.
        indexNext = str.indexOf("[tag1]");
        if (indexNext >= 0)
        {
            arrayOut.push(str.substring(0, indexNext));
            str = str.substring(indexNext + 6);
        }
        // Alternately, could `break` on else and save a trip.
    }

    return arrayOut;
}

Fiddle.

[1] Yes, I realize that's my failure when the regexp "won't behave". ;^)

Upvotes: 0

SaidbakR
SaidbakR

Reputation: 13534

You may able to do it without Regex by creating a function takes the tag and the string as parameters, like the following:

function extractText(tag, str){    
        tL = tag.length; //tag length
        tP = str.indexOf(tag); // position of tag
        sT = str.substr((tP+tL)); //remaining string after tag          
        cT = sT.indexOf(tag); //closing tag position
        return sT.substring(0,cT)
}


<a href="javascript:alert(extractText('[tag1]','[tag1] include this [tag1]'))">Test</a>

A live demo is here

Upvotes: 0

Clint Powell
Clint Powell

Reputation: 2398

This will match two matching tags and extract the middle.

\[([^\]]+)\]([^\[]+)\[\1\]

$1 backreference will get your tag ("tag1" in your example), and $2 will pull out the inner text.

Upvotes: 1

vks
vks

Reputation: 67968

\[tag1\]((?:(?!\[tag1\]).)+)

Try this.See demo.Grab the capture.

http://regex101.com/r/yW4aZ3/117

Upvotes: 1

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