Find words stuck to a bracket or parenthesis but skip those in the CSS and meta tags

dr ramaanand

I tried this regular expression which selects everything instead of selecting just what I want, that is to find words stuck to a bracket or parenthesis but skip those in the CSS section and meta tags: (?x)(<html[\S\s]*?<\/h1>)(*SKIP)(*F)|(<p[^>]*>[\S\s]*?uses\]<\/p>)(*SKIP)(*F)|(<[\S\s]*?>)(*SKIP)(*F)|(E-mail)(*SKIP)(*F)|(<h6[^<>]*>.*?<\/h6>)(*SKIP)(*F)|(A-Z)(*SKIP)(*F)|(<a\s[^>]*href.*?<\/a>)(*SKIP)(*F)|(2009-2024)(*SKIP)(*F)|(<style[\S\s]*?<\/style>)(*SKIP)(*F)|(<script[\S\s]*?<\/script>)(*SKIP)(*F)|\w+\(

dr ramaanand

At regex101.com, it finds 21 matches [although, if it skips what is in the CSS section and meta tags, it should find just one match - Sulph(Brimstone)] - see https://regex101.com/r/h9S2PI/1 but on Notepad++, it selects everything from the top to the bottom instead of skipping what I want it to

dr ramaanand

@dr-ramaanand said in Find words stuck to a bracket or parenthesis but skip those in the CSS and meta tags:

(<style[\S\s]*?</style>)(*SKIP)(F)|(<script[\S\s]?</script>)(*SKIP)(*F)|

does not seem to skip what is between <style............ and <\/style>) and what is between <script............ and <\/script>)

Mark Olson

@dr-ramaanand
First of all, this seems like a really obvious use case for an XML parser and not regular expressions (even more so than other examples where people are trying to parse XML with regex). Just parse the XML, recursively search the elements, and extract words in a bracket or parenthesis only if the tag name is not CSS or meta. Yes, I know you’re not going to listen to me because nobody ever listens to me when I give this recommendation, but I’m going to keep banging my head against that wall because I know I’m right.

I’m not going to try to analyze your regexes because they’re godawful unhinged enormous monstrosities that should really be making you reconsider your life choices, but I have a more meta question for you: is there any particular reason why you’re doing x(*SKIP)(*F)|y(*SKIP)(*F)|z(*SKIP)(*F)|a instead of the more concise (?:x|y|z)(*SKIP)(*F)|a ?

dr ramaanand

@Mark-Olson Sorry, there is nothing in common to club either the first string or the last string

dr ramaanand

@Mark-Olson The regular expression (?:<html[\S\s]*?<\/h1>|<p[^>]*>[\S\s]*?uses\]<\/p>|<[\S\s]*?>|<style[^<>]*>[\S\s]*?<\/style>|<script[^<>]*>[\S\s]*?<\/script>)(*SKIP)(*F)|\w+\( also finds 21 matches, without skipping what is between <style......> and </style> and <script......> and </script> in the block for testing typed at the top

dr ramaanand

dr ramaanand

@Mark-Olson (?:<html[\S\s]*?<\/h1>|<p[^>]*>[\S\s]*?uses\]<\/p>|<[\S\s]*?>|style[^>]*>[^<>][\S\s]*<\/style>|script[^>]*>[^<>][\S\s]*<\/script>)(*SKIP)(*F)|\w+\( skips what is between <style......> and </style> but not what is between <script......> and </script> - can you tweak that regular expression to skip what comes between <script......> and </script> ?

Mark Olson

@dr-ramaanand said

@Mark-Olson The regular expression some...unhinged...monstrosity also finds 21 matches, blah blah blah

@dr-ramaanand said

please help me

another request

yet another request

Look, please stop mentioning me. I am unfollowing this post because it’s cognitively draining just reading it. I’m done trying to help you with regular expressions. You are trying to use a hammer (regular expressions) to solve a problem that requires a screwdriver (XML). XML is a recursive data structure or context free language (for example, a div can contain a div, which can contain another div, and on and on and on…), and regular expressions are not suitable for such languages. Technically Notepad++'s Boost regex flavor can be used to handle such languages, but making a Notepad++ regex that properly handles all the subtleties of XML would make you cry tears of blood.

You are going to have a miserable time working with XML (and its little brother, HTML) until you learn how to use a real scripting language like Python. This is your final warning. I’m not trying to punish you, just trying to preserve my own sanity.

dr ramaanand

This RegEx (?:<html[\S\s]*?<\/h1>|<p[^>]*>[\S\s]*?uses\]<\/p>|<[\S\s]*?>|style[^>]*>[^<>][\S\s]*<\/script>)(*SKIP)(*F)|\w+\( seems fine. It finds every word stuck to a simple/round bracket or parenthesis to its right but skips what comes between the <html........</h1>, <p...... uses]</p>, <.........>, as well as style.......... </script>

dr ramaanand

Sorry, the Regular expression (?:<html[\S\s]*?<\/h1>|<p[^>]*>[\S\s]*?uses\]<\/p>|<[\S\s]*?>|style[^>]*>[^<>][\S\s]*<\/script>)(*SKIP)(*F)|\w+\( finds every word stuck to a simple/round bracket or parenthesis to its right but skips what comes between the <html........ and </h1>, <p...... and uses]</p>, <......... and >, as well as style.......... and </script>

dr ramaanand

On using the above RegEx, in 80 files out of 300 files in a folder, the whole text of the file was selected, instead of just a word stuck to a simple, round bracket/parenthesis to its right. Is it because no such words were found in the file (only 2 such words were found in two different files)?