Question

Regular expression needed to remove appeared hidden <Table> tag

Asked by: x_com

Good day to everyone,

I've facing one add issue during validating my team mate's coding.
He is trying regular expression to find those <table> tag that appeared below and wipe it out from existing retrieved HTML source but apparently it failed.
<Table cellSpacing='0' cellPadding='0' width='100%' border='0' style="DISPLAY: none">bla bla bla</Table>
Note: The hidden table that shown above is using same format in the entire HTML code, only the content of the table is different.

Please advise any "good regular expression pattern" that suitable to find ALL the hidden table above and take it out from the existing scrapped HTML source code. I have tried amend it for few regular expression pattern and still giving some flaw and doesn't match completely as needed.

Thanks in advanced.

Regards
x_com

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Asked On: 2009-09-10 at 01:22:42ID24720591
Tags: regular expression
Topics: Regular Expressions
,; Programming for ASP.NET
,; Microsoft Visual Basic.Net
Participating Experts: 1
Points: 500
Comments: 14

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Answers

by: evilrixPosted on 2009-09-10 at 01:26:35ID: 25298246

Something like this maybe?

<Table[^>]*>[^<]*</Table>

by: x_comPosted on 2009-09-10 at 01:28:34ID: 25298264

Thanks for quick response, evilrix.
That is generic pattern to find all the table. I only need to find "hidden" table as mentioned in question.
Need to match this table:
<Table cellSpacing='0' cellPadding='0' width='100%' border='0' style="DISPLAY: none">bla bla bla</Table>

Any more idea?

by: evilrixPosted on 2009-09-10 at 01:30:01ID: 25298272

>> I only need to find "hidden" table
And how is that identified? style="DISPLAY: none?

by: evilrixPosted on 2009-09-10 at 01:31:59ID: 25298289

If you want to match that exact table, with the only variant being the content then try this.

<Table cellSpacing='0' cellPadding='0' width='100%' border='0' style="DISPLAY: none">[^<]*</Table>

by: x_comPosted on 2009-09-10 at 01:40:31ID: 25298329

I also thought it could be that easier, but in fact this pattern seem not giving the desired result?
Here i attach the testing code that i made:

Note: You can keep changing the pattern as given in "Textbox3" and check the different. It can't take out the hidden table based on the pattern as given above.

Any more idea? Could be something not sufficient enough?

aspx
========
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML>
	<HEAD>
		<title>skiptag</title>
		<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 7.1">
		<meta name="CODE_LANGUAGE" content="Visual Basic .NET 7.1">
		<meta name="vs_defaultClientScript" content="JavaScript">
		<meta name="vs_targetSchema" content="http://schemas.microsoft.com/intellisense/ie5">
	</HEAD>
	<body MS_POSITIONING="GridLayout">
		<form id="Form1" method="post" runat="server">
			<asp:Button id="Button1" style="Z-INDEX: 101; LEFT: 1016px; POSITION: absolute; TOP: 16px" runat="server"
				Text="Button"></asp:Button>
			<asp:TextBox id="TextBox1" style="Z-INDEX: 102; LEFT: 16px; POSITION: absolute; TOP: 56px" runat="server"
				TextMode="MultiLine" Height="466px" Width="560px"></asp:TextBox>
			<asp:TextBox id="TextBox2" style="Z-INDEX: 103; LEFT: 648px; POSITION: absolute; TOP: 56px" runat="server"
				TextMode="MultiLine" Height="464px" Width="536px"></asp:TextBox>
			<asp:TextBox id="TextBox3" style="Z-INDEX: 104; LEFT: 16px; POSITION: absolute; TOP: 16px" runat="server"
				Width="992px"><Table cellSpacing='0' cellPadding='0' width='100%' border='0' style="DISPLAY: none">[^<]*</Table></asp:TextBox>
		</form>
	</body>
</HTML>
 
Code-behind
====================
 Function StripHtml(ByVal s As String, ByVal allowHarmlessTags As Boolean) As String
        Return System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(s, TextBox3.Text, String.Empty, System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.Multiline Or System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.IgnoreCase)
    End Function
 
    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        TextBox2.Text = StripHtml(TextBox1.Text, False)
    End Sub

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SampleVoucher.html.txt
- 18 KB
Original Rendered HTML Source

by: evilrixPosted on 2009-09-10 at 01:43:45ID: 25298350

>> Any more idea? Could be something not sufficient enough?
Well, you still haven't defined what you mean by "Hidden Table". I don't know HTML or VB, but if you can define specifically what you mean by this I might be able to assist.

>> It can't take out the hidden table based on the pattern as given above.
Are you saying it fails to match?

by: x_comPosted on 2009-09-10 at 01:49:58ID: 25298385

>>Well, you still haven't defined what you mean by "Hidden Table". I don't know HTML or VB, but if you can define specifically what you mean by this I might be able to assist.
Those table that match this tag need to be taken out from existing source code:
<Table cellSpacing='0' cellPadding='0' width='100%' border='0' style="DISPLAY: none">Table content....bla bla bla</Table>

eg: - refer SampleVoucher.html.txt file above
==================================

========================
original source
========================
<html>
bla bla bla
<Table cellSpacing='0' cellPadding='0' width='100%' border='0' style="DISPLAY: none">Table content....bla bla bla</Table>

bla bla bla

<div>bla bla bla</div>

<Table cellSpacing='0' cellPadding='0' width='100%' border='0' style="DISPLAY: none">Table content....bla bla bla</Table>

<span>bla bla bla</span>

<Table cellSpacing='0' cellPadding='0' width='100%' border='0'>Table content....bla bla bla</Table>
</html>

========================
Final output should look like this:
========================
<html>
bla bla bla

bla bla bla

<div>bla bla bla</div>

<span>bla bla bla</span>

<Table cellSpacing='0' cellPadding='0' width='100%' border='0'>Table content....bla bla bla</Table>
</html>

>>Are you saying it fails to match?
Yes. I've tried the given pattern, not really match.
<Table cellSpacing='0' cellPadding='0' width='100%' border='0' style="DISPLAY: none">[^<]*</Table>

Any insight about the given above?
Thanks for your time.

by: evilrixPosted on 2009-09-10 at 02:08:14ID: 25298479

>> Yes. I've tried the given pattern, not really match.
Hmm, that's interesting since RegexBuddy (my test program) matches perfectly I can only assume it is an idiosyncrasy of the regex engine (.Net right?) you are using.

>> Any insight about the given above?
Did <Table[^>]*>[^<]*</Table> match anything? If not then something doesn't make much sense.

by: x_comPosted on 2009-09-10 at 02:14:10ID: 25298504

Hmm, something not right? I've tried to find all table based on
<Table[^>]*>[^<]*</Table>
It doesn't match any table? So strange...

Do you able to take out ALL the hidden tables based on "SampleVoucher.html.txt" source as attached?

by: x_comPosted on 2009-09-11 at 02:53:26ID: 25307898

Finally, i able to solve the problem. The final code is amended in this way:
Pattern is :
<Table cellSpacing='0' cellPadding='0' width='100%' border='0' style="DISPLAY: none">(.*?)</Table>

Function StripHtml(ByVal s As String) As String
        Return System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(s, "<Table cellSpacing='0' cellPadding='0' width='100%' border='0' style=""DISPLAY: none"">(.*?)</Table>", String.Empty, System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.IgnoreCase Or System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.Multiline Or System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.Singleline Or System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.ExplicitCapture)
End Function

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by: evilrixPosted on 2009-09-11 at 02:56:16ID: 25307910

Hmmm... so it doesn't support character classes?

[^>]* should do almost the same as .*?< except the former should be a little more efficient. Both are standard regex syntax.

by: x_comPosted on 2009-09-11 at 03:05:28ID: 25307944

Yes, it is support the character classes. In fact, the major changes is regular expression type that i included make the different. It is time to close this question and thanks for your assistance to guide me to the correct path. Thanks.

by: evilrixPosted on 2009-09-11 at 03:19:39ID: 25307991

No worries x_com... sorry it took so long to get there :)

by: x_comPosted on 2009-09-11 at 03:22:33ID: 25308004

No problem. Sometime, it is need more time to invest something that simple in "mind", but not in "eyesight" :-)
Cheers.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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Question

Regular expression needed to remove appeared hidden <Table> tag

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