Table of Contents for
Regular Expressions Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Version ebook / Retour

Cover image for bash Cookbook, 2nd Edition Regular Expressions Cookbook, 2nd Edition by Steven Levithan Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc., 2012
  1. Cover
  2. Regular Expressions Cookbook
  3. Preface
  4. Caught in the Snarls of Different Versions
  5. Intended Audience
  6. Technology Covered
  7. Organization of This Book
  8. Conventions Used in This Book
  9. Using Code Examples
  10. Safari® Books Online
  11. How to Contact Us
  12. Acknowledgments
  13. 1. Introduction to Regular Expressions
  14. Regular Expressions Defined
  15. Search and Replace with Regular Expressions
  16. Tools for Working with Regular Expressions
  17. 2. Basic Regular Expression Skills
  18. 2.1. Match Literal Text
  19. 2.2. Match Nonprintable Characters
  20. 2.3. Match One of Many Characters
  21. 2.4. Match Any Character
  22. 2.5. Match Something at the Start and/or the End of a Line
  23. 2.6. Match Whole Words
  24. 2.7. Unicode Code Points, Categories, Blocks, and Scripts
  25. 2.8. Match One of Several Alternatives
  26. 2.9. Group and Capture Parts of the Match
  27. 2.10. Match Previously Matched Text Again
  28. 2.11. Capture and Name Parts of the Match
  29. 2.12. Repeat Part of the Regex a Certain Number of Times
  30. 2.13. Choose Minimal or Maximal Repetition
  31. 2.14. Eliminate Needless Backtracking
  32. 2.15. Prevent Runaway Repetition
  33. 2.16. Test for a Match Without Adding It to the Overall Match
  34. 2.17. Match One of Two Alternatives Based on a Condition
  35. 2.18. Add Comments to a Regular Expression
  36. 2.19. Insert Literal Text into the Replacement Text
  37. 2.20. Insert the Regex Match into the Replacement Text
  38. 2.21. Insert Part of the Regex Match into the Replacement Text
  39. 2.22. Insert Match Context into the Replacement Text
  40. 3. Programming with Regular Expressions
  41. Programming Languages and Regex Flavors
  42. 3.1. Literal Regular Expressions in Source Code
  43. 3.2. Import the Regular Expression Library
  44. 3.3. Create Regular Expression Objects
  45. 3.4. Set Regular Expression Options
  46. 3.5. Test If a Match Can Be Found Within a Subject String
  47. 3.6. Test Whether a Regex Matches the Subject String Entirely
  48. 3.7. Retrieve the Matched Text
  49. 3.8. Determine the Position and Length of the Match
  50. 3.9. Retrieve Part of the Matched Text
  51. 3.10. Retrieve a List of All Matches
  52. 3.11. Iterate over All Matches
  53. 3.12. Validate Matches in Procedural Code
  54. 3.13. Find a Match Within Another Match
  55. 3.14. Replace All Matches
  56. 3.15. Replace Matches Reusing Parts of the Match
  57. 3.16. Replace Matches with Replacements Generated in Code
  58. 3.17. Replace All Matches Within the Matches of Another Regex
  59. 3.18. Replace All Matches Between the Matches of Another Regex
  60. 3.19. Split a String
  61. 3.20. Split a String, Keeping the Regex Matches
  62. 3.21. Search Line by Line
  63. Construct a Parser
  64. 4. Validation and Formatting
  65. 4.1. Validate Email Addresses
  66. 4.2. Validate and Format North American Phone Numbers
  67. 4.3. Validate International Phone Numbers
  68. 4.4. Validate Traditional Date Formats
  69. 4.5. Validate Traditional Date Formats, Excluding Invalid Dates
  70. 4.6. Validate Traditional Time Formats
  71. 4.7. Validate ISO 8601 Dates and Times
  72. 4.8. Limit Input to Alphanumeric Characters
  73. 4.9. Limit the Length of Text
  74. 4.10. Limit the Number of Lines in Text
  75. 4.11. Validate Affirmative Responses
  76. 4.12. Validate Social Security Numbers
  77. 4.13. Validate ISBNs
  78. 4.14. Validate ZIP Codes
  79. 4.15. Validate Canadian Postal Codes
  80. 4.16. Validate U.K. Postcodes
  81. 4.17. Find Addresses with Post Office Boxes
  82. 4.18. Reformat Names From “FirstName LastName” to “LastName, FirstName”
  83. 4.19. Validate Password Complexity
  84. 4.20. Validate Credit Card Numbers
  85. 4.21. European VAT Numbers
  86. 5. Words, Lines, and Special Characters
  87. 5.1. Find a Specific Word
  88. 5.2. Find Any of Multiple Words
  89. 5.3. Find Similar Words
  90. 5.4. Find All Except a Specific Word
  91. 5.5. Find Any Word Not Followed by a Specific Word
  92. 5.6. Find Any Word Not Preceded by a Specific Word
  93. 5.7. Find Words Near Each Other
  94. 5.8. Find Repeated Words
  95. 5.9. Remove Duplicate Lines
  96. 5.10. Match Complete Lines That Contain a Word
  97. 5.11. Match Complete Lines That Do Not Contain a Word
  98. 5.12. Trim Leading and Trailing Whitespace
  99. 5.13. Replace Repeated Whitespace with a Single Space
  100. 5.14. Escape Regular Expression Metacharacters
  101. 6. Numbers
  102. 6.1. Integer Numbers
  103. 6.2. Hexadecimal Numbers
  104. 6.3. Binary Numbers
  105. 6.4. Octal Numbers
  106. 6.5. Decimal Numbers
  107. 6.6. Strip Leading Zeros
  108. 6.7. Numbers Within a Certain Range
  109. 6.8. Hexadecimal Numbers Within a Certain Range
  110. 6.9. Integer Numbers with Separators
  111. 6.10. Floating-Point Numbers
  112. 6.11. Numbers with Thousand Separators
  113. 6.12. Add Thousand Separators to Numbers
  114. 6.13. Roman Numerals
  115. 7. Source Code and Log Files
  116. Keywords
  117. Identifiers
  118. Numeric Constants
  119. Operators
  120. Single-Line Comments
  121. Multiline Comments
  122. All Comments
  123. Strings
  124. Strings with Escapes
  125. Regex Literals
  126. Here Documents
  127. Common Log Format
  128. Combined Log Format
  129. Broken Links Reported in Web Logs
  130. 8. URLs, Paths, and Internet Addresses
  131. 8.1. Validating URLs
  132. 8.2. Finding URLs Within Full Text
  133. 8.3. Finding Quoted URLs in Full Text
  134. 8.4. Finding URLs with Parentheses in Full Text
  135. 8.5. Turn URLs into Links
  136. 8.6. Validating URNs
  137. 8.7. Validating Generic URLs
  138. 8.8. Extracting the Scheme from a URL
  139. 8.9. Extracting the User from a URL
  140. 8.10. Extracting the Host from a URL
  141. 8.11. Extracting the Port from a URL
  142. 8.12. Extracting the Path from a URL
  143. 8.13. Extracting the Query from a URL
  144. 8.14. Extracting the Fragment from a URL
  145. 8.15. Validating Domain Names
  146. 8.16. Matching IPv4 Addresses
  147. 8.17. Matching IPv6 Addresses
  148. 8.18. Validate Windows Paths
  149. 8.19. Split Windows Paths into Their Parts
  150. 8.20. Extract the Drive Letter from a Windows Path
  151. 8.21. Extract the Server and Share from a UNC Path
  152. 8.22. Extract the Folder from a Windows Path
  153. 8.23. Extract the Filename from a Windows Path
  154. 8.24. Extract the File Extension from a Windows Path
  155. 8.25. Strip Invalid Characters from Filenames
  156. 9. Markup and Data Formats
  157. Processing Markup and Data Formats with Regular Expressions
  158. 9.1. Find XML-Style Tags
  159. 9.2. Replace Tags with
  160. 9.3. Remove All XML-Style Tags Except and
  161. 9.4. Match XML Names
  162. 9.5. Convert Plain Text to HTML by Adding

    and
    Tags

  163. 9.6. Decode XML Entities
  164. 9.7. Find a Specific Attribute in XML-Style Tags
  165. 9.8. Add a cellspacing Attribute to Tags That Do Not Already Include It
  166. 9.9. Remove XML-Style Comments
  167. 9.10. Find Words Within XML-Style Comments
  168. 9.11. Change the Delimiter Used in CSV Files
  169. 9.12. Extract CSV Fields from a Specific Column
  170. 9.13. Match INI Section Headers
  171. 9.14. Match INI Section Blocks
  172. 9.15. Match INI Name-Value Pairs
  173. Index
  174. Index
  175. Index
  176. Index
  177. Index
  178. Index
  179. Index
  180. Index
  181. Index
  182. Index
  183. Index
  184. Index
  185. Index
  186. Index
  187. Index
  188. Index
  189. Index
  190. Index
  191. Index
  192. Index
  193. Index
  194. Index
  195. Index
  196. Index
  197. Index
  198. Index
  199. About the Authors
  200. Colophon
  201. Copyright

    202. 9.2. Replace <b> Tags with <strong>

    Problem

    You want to replace all opening and closing <b> tags in a string with corresponding <strong> tags, while preserving any existing attributes.

    Solution

    This regex matches opening and closing <b> tags, with or without attributes:

    <(/?)b\b((?:[^>"']|"[^"]*"|'[^']*')*)>
    Regex options: Case insensitive
    Regex flavors: .NET, Java, JavaScript, PCRE, Perl, Python, Ruby

    In free-spacing mode:

    <
(/?)             # Capture the optional leading slash to backreference 1
b \b             # Tag name, with word boundary
(                # Capture any attributes, etc. to backreference 2
    (?: [^>"']   # Any character except >, ", or '
      | "[^"]*"  # Double-quoted attribute value
      | '[^']*'  # Single-quoted attribute value
    )*
)
>
    Regex options: Case insensitive, free-spacing
    Regex flavors: .NET, Java, XRegExp, PCRE, Perl, Python, Ruby

    To preserve all attributes while changing the tag name, use the following replacement text:

    <$1strong$2>
    Replacement text flavors: .NET, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP
    <\1strong\2>
    Replacement text flavors: Python, Ruby

    If you want to discard any attributes in the same process, omit backreference 2 in the replacement string:

    <$1strong>
    Replacement text flavors: .NET, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP
    <\1strong>
    Replacement text flavors: Python, Ruby

    Recipe 3.15 shows the code needed to implement these replacements.

Discussion

The previous recipe (9.1) included a detailed discussion of many ways to match any XML-style tag. That frees this recipe to focus on a straightforward approach to search for a specific type of tag. <b> and its replacement <strong> are offered as examples, but you can substitute those tag names with any two others.

The regex starts by matching a literal ‹<›—the first character of any tag. It then optionally matches the forward slash found in closing tags using ‹/?›, within capturing parentheses. Capturing the result of this pattern (which will be either an empty string or a forward slash) allows you to easily restore the forward slash in the replacement string, without any conditional logic.

Next, we match the tag name itself, ‹b›. You could use any other tag name instead if you wanted to. Use the case-insensitive option to make sure that you also match an uppercase B.

The word boundary (‹\b›) that follows the tag name is easy to forget, but it’s one of the most important pieces of this regex. The word boundary lets us match only <b> tags, and not <br>, <body>, <blockquote>, or any other tags that merely start with the letter “b.” We could alternatively match a whitespace token (‹\s›) after the name as a safeguard against this same problem, but that wouldn’t work for tags that have no attributes and thus might not have any whitespace following their tag name. The word boundary solves this problem simply and elegantly.

Tip

When working with XML and XHTML, be aware that the colon used for namespaces, as well as hyphens and some other characters allowed as part of XML names, create a word boundary. For example, the regex could end up matching something like <b-sharp>. If you’re worried about this, you might want to use the lookahead ‹(?=[\s/>])› instead of a word boundary. It achieves the same result of ensuring that we do not match partial tag names, and does so more reliably.

After the tag name, the pattern ‹((?:[^>"']|"[^"]*"|'[^']*')*)› is used to match anything remaining within the tag up until the closing right angle bracket. Wrapping this pattern in a capturing group as we’ve done here lets us easily bring back any attributes and other characters (such as the trailing slash for singleton tags) in our replacement string. Within the capturing parentheses, the pattern repeats a noncapturing group with three alternatives. The first, ‹[^>"']›, matches any single character except >, ", or '. The remaining two alternatives match an entire double- or single-quoted string, which lets you match attribute values that contain right angle brackets without having the regex think it has found the end of the tag.

Variations

Replace a list of tags

If you want to match any tag from a list of tag names, a simple change is needed. Place all of the desired tag names within a group, and alternate between them.

The following regex matches opening and closing <b>, <i>, <em>, and <big> tags. The replacement text shown later replaces all of them with a corresponding <strong> or </strong> tag, while preserving any attributes:

<(/?)([bi]|em|big)\b((?:[^>"']|"[^"]*"|'[^']*')*)>
Regex options: Case insensitive
Regex flavors: .NET, Java, JavaScript, PCRE, Perl, Python, Ruby

Here’s the same regex in free-spacing mode:

<
(/?)              # Capture the optional leading slash to backreference 1
([bi]|em|big) \b  # Capture the tag name to backreference 2
(                 # Capture any attributes, etc. to backreference 3
    (?: [^>"']    # Any character except >, ", or '
      | "[^"]*"   # Double-quoted attribute value
      | '[^']*'   # Single-quoted attribute value
    )*
)
>
Regex options: Case insensitive, free-spacing
Regex flavors: .NET, Java, XRegExp, PCRE, Perl, Python, Ruby

We’ve used the character class ‹[bi]› to match both <b> and <i> tags, rather than separating them with the alternation metacharacter ‹|› as we’ve done for <em> and <big>. Character classes are faster than alternation because they are implemented using bit vectors (or other fast implementations) rather than backtracking. When the difference between two options is a single character, use a character class.

We’ve also added a capturing group for the tag name, which shifted the group that matches attributes, etc. to store its match as backreference 3. Although there’s no need to refer back to the tag name if you’re just going to replace all matches with <strong> tags, storing the tag name in its own backreference can help you check what type of tag was matched, when needed.

To preserve all attributes while replacing the tag name, use the following replacement text:

<$1strong$3>
Replacement text flavors: .NET, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP
<\1strong\3>
Replacement text flavors: Python, Ruby

Omit backreference 3 in the replacement string if you want to discard attributes for matched tags as part of the same process:

<$1strong>
Replacement text flavors: .NET, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP
<\1strong>
Replacement text flavors: Python, Ruby

See Also

Recipe 9.1 shows how to match all XML-style tags while balancing trade-offs including tolerance for invalid markup.

Recipe 9.3 is the opposite of this recipe, and shows how to match all except a select list of tags.

Techniques used in the regular expressions and replacement text in this recipe are discussed in Chapter 2. Recipe 2.3 explains character classes. Recipe 2.6 explains word boundaries. Recipe 2.8 explains alternation. Recipe 2.9 explains grouping. Recipe 2.12 explains repetition. Recipe 2.16 explains lookaround. Recipe 2.21 explains how to insert text matched by capturing groups into the replacement text.