Question

I am trying to parse an xml but before parsing it I am cleaning some unnecassary attributes from it by using Regex.Replace method of .NET.

This is my input

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> 
 <SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:ns1="urn:Magento" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
 <SOAP-ENV:Body>
 <ns1:loginResponse>
  <loginReturn xsi:type="xsd:string">asdsadsadasdas2321312dasdasdas21asdas</loginReturn> 
  </ns1:loginResponse>
  </SOAP-ENV:Body>
  </SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

This is what I wrote for regex

xmlns:[a-zA-Z\d-=":\/\.]+

This is output

<SOAP-ENV:Envelope SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
 <SOAP-ENV:Body>
 <ns1:loginResponse>
  <loginReturn xsi:type="xsd:string">asdsadsadasdas2321312dasdasdas21asdas</loginReturn> 
  </ns1:loginResponse>
  </SOAP-ENV:Body>
  </SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

---

Found 5 matches:
xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
xmlns:ns1="urn:Magento"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"
String literals for use in programs:
C#
@"xmlns:[a-zA-Z\d-="":\/\.]+"

and this is wanted output

 <SOAP-ENV:Envelope>
 <SOAP-ENV:Body>
 <ns1:loginResponse>
  <loginReturn>asdsadsadasdas2321312dasdasdas21asdas</loginReturn> 
  </ns1:loginResponse>
  </SOAP-ENV:Body>
  </SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

I tried something like

xmlns?xsi?[a-zA-Z\d-=":\/\.]+

but it doesnt work. It also doesnt seem that can solve the attributes that begins with SOAP-ENV anyway.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Try this for a regex.. this might get you the output you want.

(xmlns:| SOAP-|xsi:)[\w-=":\/\.]+

The question mark makes the previous statement optional and in your case only makes the ‘s’ and the ‘i’ optional

xmln s?xs i?[a-zA-Z\d-=”:/.]+

If you meant to make the xmln and the xsi tags optional your regex should look like this

(xmlns)?(xsi)?[a-zA-Z\d-=":\/\.]+ 

This would catch alot since the regex will capture everthing in the [a-zA-Z\d-=":\/\.]+ part as well