Remove links and text from list.
I am looking to remove anything (Including the 'marker' text) between:
<a href"
and the first instance of:
</li>
So the following:
<li> blah blah <a href="blah.com"> blah </a> </li>
<li> blah blah <a href="blah2.com"> blah blah blah </a> </li>
Looks like:
<li> blah blah
<li> blah blah
<a href"
and the first instance of:
</li>
So the following:
<li> blah blah <a href="blah.com"> blah </a> </li>
<li> blah blah <a href="blah2.com"> blah blah blah </a> </li>
Looks like:
<li> blah blah
<li> blah blah
Actually this is probably better:
$data =~ s/(<li>.*?)<a href=".*?<\/li>/$1/sg;ASKER
Is there a way to tweak this, so that the file can be piped into it?
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If the intended purpose of the (<li>.*?) was to prevent removal of things like
<a href="blah.com"> blah </a>
<li> blah blah </li>
you may want to note that it does not prevent removal of something like
<li> blah blah </li>
<a href="blah2.com"> blah blah blah </a>
<li> blah blah blah blah blah </li>
<a href="blah.com"> blah </a>
<li> blah blah </li>
you may want to note that it does not prevent removal of something like
<li> blah blah </li>
<a href="blah2.com"> blah blah blah </a>
<li> blah blah blah blah blah </li>
ASKER
The items to be removed would exist inside of the <li> </li> tags. There will probably be more cleaning up that will be required, but at this stage, that is fine. I appreciate the feed back.
Good point ozo. This might be better:
perl -0777 -i.bak -pe 's/(<li>(?:(?!<\/li>).)*?)<a href=".*?<\/li>/$1/sg' file.txt
But the substitution in http:#a39233593 is capable of removing items not inside of <li> </li> tags.
If your input file has no items outside of <li> </li> tags then it may not matter for your application.
But if your input file has no items outside of <li> </li> tags then the (<li>.*?) would seem to serve no purpose.
If your input file has no items outside of <li> </li> tags then it may not matter for your application.
But if your input file has no items outside of <li> </li> tags then the (<li>.*?) would seem to serve no purpose.
ASKER
The application that I am going to use this for only has data inside of <li> </li> tags. There is no other data. As long as the 'delete' only goes to the next </li> tag, it should be good. I just don't want to have it get greedy and delete an entire <li> ... </li> set.
s/(<li>(?:(?!<\/li>).)*?)<
takes care of the case of
<li> blah blah </li>
<li> blah blah <a href="blah2.com"> blah blah blah </a> </li>
but not the case of
<li> blah blah
<li> blah blah <a href="blah.com"> blah </a>
<li> blah blah <a href="blah2.com"> blah blah blah </a>
</li>
takes care of the case of
<li> blah blah </li>
<li> blah blah <a href="blah2.com"> blah blah blah </a> </li>
but not the case of
<li> blah blah
<li> blah blah <a href="blah.com"> blah </a>
<li> blah blah <a href="blah2.com"> blah blah blah </a>
</li>
ASKER
There will not be nested <li></li> sets. That I am comfortable with. There is a chance that there might be the occasional set that does not have a link. But I will have to see if that happens.
You'll need the latest version I posted to successful handle data where there exists a <li> tag without a link in it.
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