RegEx - matching space in HTML string?

Question

To sanitise user input from a WYSIWYG editor, I'm trying to find the following strings:

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p> </p>

<p></p>

This is the regular expression I'm currently using:

/\<p\>([nbsp\;]*|[\s]*|[ ]*)\<\/p\>/i

I'm quite new to RegEx, but from what I understand, this:

\<p\>: - Matches <p> exactly, then
( - Matches either:
- [nbsp\;]* - "nbsp;" exactly, any number of times
- |[\s]* - or any whitespace character, any number of times
- |[ ]* - or " " (a space), any number of times
<\/p\> - Matches </p> exactly

However, this expression only matches <p>nbsp;</p> and not the other two.

I have also tried:

/\<p\>[nbsp\;|\s| ]*\<\/p\>/i

I am testing it using RegEx101.com (first expression, second expression)

How can I get this to work?

hwnd · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-21 07:49:17Z

1

You can't use "whole words" inside of a character class, the following will suffice ...

~<p>(?:&nbsp;|\s)*</p>~i

Note: You don't need to include <space>, the \s token will match the whitespace and you don't need to escape < and >, they are not considered special characters.

edited Jul 21, 2015 at 7:49

answered Jul 21, 2015 at 7:42

hwnd

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take · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-21 07:42:23Z

1

You have to use the g modifier for multiple matches.

/\<p\>([nbsp\;|\s| ]*[\s]*|)\<\/p\>/gi

https://regex101.com/r/zR9jY4/2

answered Jul 21, 2015 at 7:42

take

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donald123 · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-21 07:42:39Z

1

You forget the amp; &

 /\<p\>[&nbsp\;|\s| ]*\<\/p\>/i

In example

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p> </p>

<p></p>
<p> asdfas</p>

This would match the first 3

answered Jul 21, 2015 at 7:42

donald123

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Inurosen · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-21 07:42:08Z

0

You don't have to use square brackets.

/\<p\>(&nbsp;*|\s*)\<\/p\>/i

answered Jul 21, 2015 at 7:42

Inurosen

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