How I match an HTML attribute using Notepad++ regular expression search?

Question

Here is my text:

<span class="c1">Testing "this string"</span>

and I want to end up with this:

<span>Testing "this string"</span>

so I tried to use this regex in Notepad++ to replace with nothing:

 class=".*"

but that matches this:

 class="c1">Testing "this string"

How do I stop that match after one instance of "?

where are you doing this? on server using server-side code or in the browser? — Scott Evernden
– Scott Evernden, Commented Aug 27, 2010 at 20:42
@Scott: OP is asking how to replace it using Notepad++. I've tagged and edited the title accordingly. — BoltClock
– BoltClock, Commented Aug 27, 2010 at 20:43
This summarizes my feelings about HTML and regex very well :-) - stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/… — Franci Penov
– Franci Penov, Commented Aug 27, 2010 at 20:47
@Franci that's my go-to link for this sort of questions usually too, but in this case the OP wants to do find and replace within their IDE, so it's a legitimate exception ;) — Daniel Vandersluis
– Daniel Vandersluis, Commented Aug 27, 2010 at 20:50
@BoltClock potato, potato (I guess that doesn't really work in text). :) — Daniel Vandersluis
– Daniel Vandersluis, Commented Aug 27, 2010 at 20:56

Daniel Vandersluis · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-27 20:53:40Z

15

By default, regular expressions are greedy (and so .* will match as much as it possibly can, which, in your case is c1">Testing "this string). In general, you have two ways of getting around this:

Use a nongreedy (or lazy) modifier (.*?), which will match as little as possible (in your case, just c1). Notepad++ doesn't support lazy modifiers, though.
Specify exactly what you want to match with class="[^"]*", which will match everything that isn't a quote. In general, this is the more optimized solution, as well.

edited Aug 27, 2010 at 20:53

answered Aug 27, 2010 at 20:42

Daniel Vandersluis

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3 Comments

BoltClock Over a year ago

+1 for the complementary character class. (I'll do it once my vote limit resets though.)

Khan Over a year ago

Notepad++ didn't work with the ?, but the second solution was perfect. Thanks!!

Daniel Vandersluis Over a year ago

@Khan: as BoltClock mentioned below, Notepad++ doesn't support ungreedy modifiers.

Ian Henry · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-27 20:41:47Z

1

class=".*?"

Will make the * lazy.

answered Aug 27, 2010 at 20:41

Ian Henry

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