Using regex in javascript to select only text between tags

Question

I've searched and searched but can't seem to find the answer I need. I'm still wrapping my head around the whole regex thing don't know enough to solve this problem, which seems far to simple.

I have a string "<a href="#">London<span>35.2miles</span></a>"

I need to chop everything apart from "London", but everything I try results in "London<span>35.2miles</span>" I cannot seem to get rid of the span tags and text, as well as the a tags.

Cthulhu, my lord, he comes whilst virgin ponies wheep the blood of the unborn... or something like that — Elias Van Ootegem
– Elias Van Ootegem, Commented Jul 18, 2012 at 10:56

Esailija · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-18 10:51:12Z

3

var root = document.createElement("div");
root.innerHTML = '<a href="#">London<span>35.2miles</span></a>';
alert( root.firstChild.firstChild.nodeValue );

answered Jul 18, 2012 at 10:51

Esailija

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1 Comment

Tamil Over a year ago

+1 for handling it as DOM element :) Jus added a comment for the same in OP

Matt · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-18 10:49:06Z

1

The following regular expression should work;

/>([^<]*)/

It matches anything from the first > until it hits another <

You can combine this with the match() method, to end up with something like this;

var matches = '<a href="#">London<span>35.2miles</span></a>'.match(/>([^<]*)/);

if (matches) { // "null" if no matches, array if there was.
    var london = matches[1];
}

answered Jul 18, 2012 at 10:49

Matt

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