javascript regular expression error

Question

I have this regular expression ^<+[a-zA-z=\" ]+> I need it to replace text in this string Some text.

I just want to remove the spans and get that Some text, this is my code:

var text = "<span class=\"myclass\">Some text</span>";
var myText = text.replace(/^<+[a-zA-z=\" ]+>/,"").replace("</span>","");

I searched for this for about an hour but I cant find where my error is. Note that I just cant type the span tag so I made spaces in front their open bracket.

And I know that I can type:

var someVar = $(".myClass").html();

but I need the regexp, so please help me!

Can you explain more about the context? Using DOM manipulation would be so much easier and less error prone. Also, just format the text as code if you want to display span tags literally. As of now, it's unclear whether your text really contains the spaces (...) or not. — Felix Kling
– Felix Kling, Commented Jul 19, 2013 at 11:20
Yea I know, I am using DOM manipulation (i.e. that second jQuery code) with this just the struggle i got was why my regular expression did not do the job ? Because i tested it with regex tester and there it was working so i can't understand why here it is not. I just want to find where my error is :) — Simeon Kolev
– Simeon Kolev, Commented Jul 19, 2013 at 11:27
If I assume that your text is actually Some text then the regular expression works fine (see jsfiddle.net/aWHkj/2, it removes the opening  tag). Only removing the closing  tag does not work because you have a trailing space in your search string: " ". If I remove that it seems to work fine: jsfiddle.net/aWHkj. Since you didn't explain what the problem is, I don't know if this helps though. — Felix Kling
– Felix Kling, Commented Jul 19, 2013 at 11:29
yea it helped but i cant understand why before 20 mins this wasnt working maybe i really had a typo somewhere and just couldn't find it thank you man :) — Simeon Kolev
– Simeon Kolev, Commented Jul 19, 2013 at 11:39

user1596371 · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-19 11:27:36Z

1

If you just want what is sitting between the first > and the next < you can do something like this:

var myText = text.replace(/^[^>]*>([^<]*).*/, "$1");

Here is a jsfiddle for it. If you want to make this specific to the span you can alter the leading part of the regex to include the span.

As mentioned above, however, if you are doing this in the DOM then it's a lot safer to stick to existing DOM manipulation features.

answered Jul 19, 2013 at 11:27

user1596371

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1 Comment

Simeon Kolev Over a year ago

That does the job perfectly :) thank you! But I really wanna know why that top one didn't work. Thank you for your fast reply!

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