Remove Namespace references from XML with Regex

Question

I have a regex that removes xmlns references from XML. It works fine when there are matching tags, but if the the xmlns reference is in a single tag it removes "/" as well.

Here is the regex:

"<(.*?) xmlns[:=].*?>", "<$1>"

When I use the regex on this line of xml:

<ns22:someTagName xmlns:ns22="http://exampledatatypes.com"></ns22:someTagName>

I get what I want:

<ns22:someTagName></ns22:someTagName>

When I use the regex on this line of xml:

<ns22:someTagName xmlns:ns22="http://exampledatatypes.com"/>

I get this invalid XML:

<ns22:someTagName>

It removes the reference fine, but it takes the closing "/" with it.

Thanks for the help, Scott

Don't use regex for XML. What programming language are you using? Undoubtedly there is a superior XML API that would allow you remove namespaces easily. — Andrew Hare
– Andrew Hare, Commented Feb 24, 2011 at 16:28

Andrew Hare · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-24 17:03:22Z

7

Rather than trying to preserve what you need from the XML it would be better to target what you want to remove.

This expression targets just the namespace itself:

\sxmlns[^"]+"[^"]+"

Unfortunately I don't know LotusScript so I can't give you a code sample of how to use this but what you need to do is something like this psuedocode:

result = regex.replace(yourString, '\sxmlns[^"]+"[^"]+"', '')

What you will do here is replace all matches with an empty string (effectively removing them). This will work for both a closed and self-closed XML tag and it will also work if the tag doens't have a namespace at all.

Edit: Here is a fully-functional Python example:

>>> from re import sub
>>> pattern = r'\sxmlns[^"]+"[^"]+"'
>>> closed = r'<ns22:someTagName xmlns:ns22="http://exampledatatypes.com"></ns22:someTagName>'
>>> sub(pattern, '', closed)
'<ns22:someTagName></ns22:someTagName>'
>>> selfclosed = r'<ns22:someTagName xmlns:ns22="http://exampledatatypes.com"/>'
>>> sub(pattern, '', selfclosed)
'<ns22:someTagName/>'

edited Feb 24, 2011 at 17:03

answered Feb 24, 2011 at 16:54

Andrew Hare

353k75 gold badges649 silver badges642 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

4 Comments

Scott Over a year ago

Hmmm. I tried it and it didn't seen to do anything. In LS you need to escape " with another ". Here is what i tried: ExecuteReplace(sXML, "xmlns[^""]+""[^""]+""", "")

Scott Over a year ago

Hi Andrew, I got it to work, but it leaves whitespace in the tag where the reference is removed. Is there a way to clear the whitespace out? ExecuteReplace(sXML, "xmlns[^""]+""[^""]+""", "")

Andrew Hare Over a year ago

@Scott - I changed the expression to this: \sxmlns[^"]+"[^"]+" to handle the whitespace issue.

Scott Over a year ago

I added a space in front of xmlns and it fixed it: ExecuteReplace(sXML, " xmlns[^""]+""[^""]+""", ""). Thanks for the help.

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 11:53:04Z

1

Don't use regex on XML if you have access to an XML parser! That being said, I don't know anything about LotusScript's XML parsing capabilities (if it even has them), so if you must use regex, this will get you closer:

<([^>]*?)\bxmlns\b[^"']+('|").*?$2(.*?/?>)

to be replaced with:

<$1$3

The most important change here from your original regex is the /? toward the end. BTW, I haven't escaped the qoutes or backslashes since I don't know LotusScript syntax for that, and I assume you do.

There will always be XML-valid input that cannot be properly understood by this, due to the limitations of regex. However, it should work for most cases. You could double-check manually by searching for the string "xmlns" afterward.

edited May 23, 2017 at 11:53

CommunityBot

11 silver badge

answered Feb 24, 2011 at 17:13

Justin Morgan

30.7k13 gold badges82 silver badges109 bronze badges

Comments

jediz · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-24 16:04:11Z

0

regex \s*xmlns(:\w+)?="[^"]*" can remove both implicit / named xmlns.

In Java, xmlString.replaceFirst("\\s*xmlns(:\\w+)?=\"[^\"]*\"", "")

https://regexr.com/ is a great tool to use for writing/testing these.

answered Feb 24, 2021 at 16:04

jediz

4,7175 gold badges42 silver badges42 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Remove Namespace references from XML with Regex

3 Answers 3

4 Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

4 Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related