Searching strings for patterns

Question

User1588000814 posted

Hello

I need to search a large amount of text for specific patterns and extract the string within that certain pattern.

For example, say I have a line of HTML text and I want to extract the name and email within the text:

<td align="left"><span class="p">Smith, John<br />
<a href="mailto:[e-mail]">[e-mail]</a>
</td> 

I know how to split a string using one character but I need to set the start and end point for the split to work with e.g. for the name, start the split point at "<span class="p">" but end at the "<br/> so as to leave the remainder as "Smith, John"

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance

Cheers

Answer 1

User-802546231 posted

I would use regular expressions to get the data you need, something like

[a-z,A-Z]*, [a-z,A-Z]*|[_a-z0-9-]+(\.[_a-z0-9-]+)*@[a-z0-9-]+(\.[a-z0-9-]+)*(\.[a-z]{2,4})

should do the trick,

http://regexhero.net/tester/

http://www.regular-expressions.info/

Answer 2

User1588000814 posted

Thanks for your help