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I am required to retrieve all the data between table tag . but recently due to some update on site they forgot to include a closing tag in one of the tables. Original source code goes here:

<table><tr><td><b>Semester:</b></td><td><b>5</b></td><td></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<b> Result:&nbsp;&nbsp;SECOND CLASS </b></td></tr></table><hr>

<table><tr><td width=250>Subject</td><td width=60 align=center>External </td><td width=60 align=center>Internal</td><td align=center width=60>Total</td><td align=center width=60>Result</td></tr><br><tr><td width=250><i>Software Engineering (06IS51)</i></td><td width=60 align=center>45</td><td width=60 align=center>19</td><td width=60 align=center>64</td><td  width=60 align=center><b>P</b></td></tr><tr><td width=250><i>Systems Software (06CS52)</i></td><td width=60 align=center>48</td><td width=60 align=center>20</td><td width=60 align=center>68</td><td width=60 align=center><b>P</b></td></tr><tr><td width=250><i>Operating Systems (06CS53)</i></td><td width=60 align=center>37</td><td width=60 align=center>21</td><td width=60 align=center>58</td><td width=60 align=center><b>P</b></td></tr><tr><td width=250><i>Database Management Systems (06CS54)</i></td><td width=60 align=center>38</td><td width=60 align=center>19</td><td width=60 align=center>57</td><td width=60 align=center><b>P</b></td></tr><tr><td width=250><i>Computer Networks - I (06CS55)</i></td><td width=60 align=center>58</td><td width=60 align=center>20</td><td width=60 align=center>78</td><td width=60 align=center><b>P</b></td></tr><tr><td width=250><i>Formal Languages & Automata Theory (06CS56)</i></td><td width=60 align=center>58</td><td width=60 align=center>21</td><td width=60 align=center>79</td><td width=60 align=center><b>P</b></td></tr><tr><td width=250><i>Database Applications Laboratory (06CSL57)</i></td><td width=60 align=center>49</td><td width=60 align=center>20</td><td width=60 align=center>69</td><td width=60 align=center><b>P</b></td></tr><tr><td width=250><i>Algorithms Laboratory (06CSL58)</i></td><td width=60 align=center>20</td><td width=60 align=center>18</td><td width=60 align=center>38</td><td width=60 align=center><b>P</b></td></tr><br><br><hr>

<table><tr><td><b>Semester:</b></td><td><b>3</b></td><td></td><td> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<b> Result:&nbsp;&nbsp;SECOND CLASS </b></td></tr></table><hr>

<table><tr><td width=250>Subject</td><td width=60 align=center>External </td><td width=60 align=center>Internal</td><td align=center width=60>Total</td><td align=center width=60>Result</td></tr><br><tr><td width=250><i>Electronic Circuits (06CS32)</i></td><td width=60 align=center>35</td><td width=60 align=center>15</td><td width=60 align=center>50</td><td  width=60 align=center><b>P</b></td></tr></table><br><br>

<table><tr><td></td><td></td><td>Total Marks:</td><td> 50 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </td></tr></table>

I used the below regualr expression to match and it was working fine but as you can notice the recent update has forgot to include closing tag of table is in second table element and it is breaking the code.

"|<table>.*<\/table>|U"

Kindly help me to form a expression to match the data between tables . Any help will be highly appreciated. Thanks.

Jav_Rock
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Divya Hegde
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    StackOverflow should really link to this automatically when regex and HTML Parsing feature in a question: http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/78845 – johnsyweb Jan 31 '12 at 09:55
  • It's recommended that you do not use regex for parsing HTML. What server side language are you using? PHP? – IsisCode Jan 31 '12 at 09:56
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    Which language / library are you working with? Find a proper HTML parser for it. – Konrad Rudolph Jan 31 '12 at 10:00
  • @Johnsyweb Note that on the one hand only certain parts of HTML are irregular and on the other hand there are regular expression libraries that do support recursive pattern matching. – Gumbo Jan 31 '12 at 10:03
  • @Gumbo: Noted but I'd still opt for a proven parser for robustness, readability and maintainability! – johnsyweb Jan 31 '12 at 10:12

1 Answers1

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Instead of getting the data between the <table> tags, you could actually decide to take data starting from the first <tr> tag to the last </tr> (inclusive)

/(<tr>.*<\/tr>)/
Davide
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  • its a small part of larger application . The functions and whole logic is implemented on the data collected from the table tag . So its must for me to get the whole data between table not individual data as you suggested any help – Divya Hegde Jan 31 '12 at 10:28
  • Do I understand correctly if I say that you need to retrieve, in the first table example, this data? `Semester:5     Result:  SECOND CLASS ` If so, this is what the regex is doing, otherwise please correct me :) – Davide Jan 31 '12 at 10:35
  • yes and similarly i want to retrieve for all the tables but in second table closing tag missed so it takes data upto third closing table tag – Divya Hegde Jan 31 '12 at 10:45
  • That is actually what the regex I wrote returns. You can check it here: [regex test](http://tinyurl.com/7e6cwdo). Could it be a problem with the "U" option you have in your regex? – Davide Jan 31 '12 at 11:58