Get the value of an HTML element

Question

I have the HTML code of a webpage in a text file. I'd like my program to return the value that is in a tag. E.g. I want to get "Julius" out of

<span class="hidden first">Julius</span>

Do I need regular expression for this? Otherwise what is a string function that can do it?

You do not want regex. HTML is too complex for regex parsing. Here is the infamous answer to that point : stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/… — gbtimmon
– gbtimmon, Commented Nov 5, 2012 at 14:45
Also what do you actually want? Assuming you don't just want "Julius" returned everytime do you want all text between <span> tags? All text between <span> tags that have a class of "first"? — Fishcake
– Fishcake, Commented Nov 5, 2012 at 14:46

Anirudha · Accepted Answer · 2015-08-20 06:05:37Z

14

You should be using an html parser like htmlagilitypack .Regex is not a good choice for parsing HTML files as HTML is not strict nor is it regular with its format.

You can use below code to retrieve it using HtmlAgilityPack

HtmlDocument doc = new HtmlDocument();
doc.Load(yourStream);

var itemList = doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//span[@class='hidden first']")//this xpath selects all span tag having its class as hidden first
                  .Select(p => p.InnerText)
                  .ToList();

//itemList now contain all the span tags content having its class as hidden first

edited Aug 20, 2015 at 6:05

answered Nov 5, 2012 at 14:47

Anirudha

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2 Comments

ridgerunner Over a year ago

No, the C#/.NET regex engine is certainly capable of matching non-REGULAR expressions. But you are correct that other tools are a better choice for parsing HTML.

Anirudha Over a year ago

@ridgerunner u r right..i guess .net has the best regex engine..:D

carla · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-24 20:28:09Z

7

I would use the Html Agility Pack to parse the HTML in C#.

edited Nov 24, 2017 at 20:28

carla

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answered Nov 5, 2012 at 14:45

Pablo Santa Cruz

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Comments

wp78de · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-28 03:52:45Z

2

I'd strongly recommend you look into something like the HTML Agility Pack

edited Nov 28, 2017 at 3:52

wp78de

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answered Nov 5, 2012 at 14:45

KingCronus

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Comments

user1570048 · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-05 16:49:00Z

1

i've asked the same question few days ago and ened up using HTML Agility Pack, but here is the regular expressions that you want

this one will ignore the attributes

<span[^>]*>(.*?)</span>

this one will consider the attributes

<span class="hidden first"[^>]*>(.*?)</span>

answered Nov 5, 2012 at 16:49

user1570048

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