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#1 |
Connoisseur
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Possible RegEx error in Sigil (minimal match being ignored)
Hello,
I'm trying to delete all 'span' tags with no content (i.e. <span blah blah>(nothing here)</span> by using the following RegEx (with minimal match enabled) <span .*></span> Here is some example text which shouldn't match anything <hgroup><h2 class="CHAPTER" id="ch1"><span class="CN"><samp class="SANS_Futura_Std_Bold_Condensed_B_11">1</samp></span> <span class="CT"><samp class="SANS_Dogma_OT_Bold_B_11">WINDOWS FOUNDATIONAL CONCEPTS</samp></span></h2></hgroup> As we can see, there are no span tags without content. Running this RegEx however matches the following text (as can be seen in the attached screenshot) <span class="CN"><samp class="SANS_Futura_Std_Bold_Condensed_B_11">1</samp></span> Is there anything I have missed, or is this indeed an error? Rgds Karl |
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#2 |
Grand Sorcerer
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The .* in your regular expression also matches other tags. The following expression should work:
Code:
<span[^>]*></span> |
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#3 |
Connoisseur
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#4 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Nope. Minimal Match can't affect the inherent greediness of *.
At least I don't recall it doing so in the past. Last edited by DiapDealer; Today at 01:07 PM. |
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#5 | |
Connoisseur
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Quote:
So what IS 'minimal match' for then, and what's the option (if there is one) for a non-greedy RegEx in Sigil? |
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#6 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Doitsu's regex was an example of a non-greedy search. But let me do some investigation. I don't really use the Minimal Match option, so there could be a problem with it. I don't want to be too nasty in dismissing what might be a bug.
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#7 |
Sigil Developer
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And no the text will only stop at the first ">" when a match is found, without a match it will continue to grow the search area until it finds the first match or none at all. That is what the "minimal match" flag means. It finds the minimal length match if one exists.
Last edited by KevinH; Today at 01:52 PM. |
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#8 |
Bibliophagist
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Personally, I find it easier to use @DiapDealer's TagMechanic plugin for this type of task. Saves me from the issues when my fat fingers cause a typo,
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