Using Regex to strip certain CSS properties out of an HTML string

Question

I have a telerik RadEditor that a user is able to enter HTML into an editor and save to my database. Most of the time this works great, but I'm having a problem with certain instances when there is a css attribute of position: absolute; or z-index: 100; (could be any # for z-index) within the element's style attribute.

I looked at the telerik options and don't see an out of the box solution (correct me if I'm wrong) but I am basically trying to find a Regex that I can use to strip out those CSS properties in the code behind. This project uses VB.Net (I am a C# developer) so I'm already fighting an uphill battle. I originally was looking at this example from stack but I'm not exactly trying to do the same thing and I am no master of writing my own Regexes...

Here's what I have so far that does not work as expected:

Dim html As String = "<div style=""position: absolute; z-index: 6;"">a bunch of other html</div>"

html = Regex.Replace(html, "((?:position|z-index)(?:[^:]+):(?:\\s*))([^;]+)", "")

I don't know if I just have a small syntax issue, or if I'm completely off in my approach...

Please note, I need to remove the properties with or without a semicolon and ideally should ignore a space between the colon, so these should all get removed:

position: absolute;
position : absolute;
position: absolute
position : absolute
z-index: anyInt;
z-index : anyInt;
z-index: anyInt
z-index : anyInt

The only other requirement is that I to strip out ALL occurrences, not just the first. Any help with solving this issue will be greatly appreciated!

walid toumi · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-26 17:54:10Z

2

If i understand:

(?:position|z-index)[ ]*:[ ]*[^;]+;

It remove all properties position and z-index

Or:

(?:position|z-index)\s*:\s*(?:absolute|\d+);?

edited Sep 26, 2014 at 17:54

answered Sep 26, 2014 at 17:48

walid toumi

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2 Comments

Ben Over a year ago

This is almost what I need as the position and z-index along with their values are removed, however the semicolons are getting left behind, such as '<div style="some attribute: value; ; another-attribute: value; ;">'

Ben Over a year ago

Ahh, nevermind, I missed the semicolon at the end of your example... this works, marking as the correct response!

rdleal · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-26 18:12:41Z

1

Try Something like this:

html = Regex.Replace(html, "(position|z-index)\\s*:\\s*(\\w|\\d)+\\s*;?", "", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.Multiline);

You'll need to use RegexOptions.Multiline in order to replace all occurrences of the pattern. I used RegexOptions.IgnoreCase so the Regex engine will replace the occurrences independent of their letter case.

Hope it helps.

answered Sep 26, 2014 at 18:12

rdleal

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Comments

femtoRgon · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-26 17:50:05Z

0

Seems like you could simplify somewhat, and make sure you are only getting instances like "position:absolute" or "z-index:int", rather than also matching other possible values for the position and z-index attributes:

html = Regex.Replace(html, "((position\\s*:\\s*absolute;?)|(z-index\\s*:\\s*\\d+;?))", "")

answered Sep 26, 2014 at 17:50

femtoRgon

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