CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptjquery
sullivan
sullivan

Reputation: 6823

String extraction with javascript

I'm using jquery and have an entire html page stored in var page

var page = '<html>...<div id="start">......</div><!-- start -->....</html>';

How can I extract only the section that starts with <div id="start"> all the way to after the end tag </div><!-- start --> such that my output is

<div id="start">......</div><!-- start -->

Upvotes: 2

Views: 156

Answers (6)

Lee
Lee

Reputation: 13542

if it's valid html, it would be easiest to just let the browser do it for you. Something like this would do the trick:

var page = '<html><head><title>foo</title><body><div id="stuff"><div id="start">blah<span>fff</span></div></div></body></head></html>';

var start_div = $('#start', page).parent();
alert( start_div.html() )

You can see this example in action at jsFiddle.

[edit] as @Nick pointed out above, this would probably not include the html comment at the end of the div. It also might not work in all browsers -- I don't know -- you should test it. Post back and let us know.

Upvotes: 2

Ender
Ender

Reputation: 15231

An appropriate regular expression will get you what you are looking for. Try using a line like this:

var start = page.match(/(<div id="start">[\s\S]*?<\!-- start -->)/)[1];

This uses JavaScript's match method to return an array of matches from your page string, and puts the first parenthetized sub-match (in this case, your #start tag and the following comment), into start.

Here's a demo that shows this method working: http://jsfiddle.net/Ender/mphUj/

Upvotes: 1

Ben Lee
Ben Lee

Reputation: 53359

var start = page.match(/(<div id="start">.*?<!-- start -->)/m)[1];

Upvotes: 1

FatherStorm
FatherStorm

Reputation: 7183

regex. or the lazy way (which I don't recommend but is quick..) would be to create a hidden DIV, throw it in the div and do a selector for it

$('#myNewDiv').next('#start').html();

Upvotes: 1

Tatu Ulmanen
Tatu Ulmanen

Reputation: 124888

This should do it:

var result = $(page).find('#start')[0].outerHTML;

Upvotes: 1

AndreKR
AndreKR

Reputation: 33707

$(page).find('#start').html();

Upvotes: 2

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