Question

I am working on a text editor and when the page renders I am trying to convert all <div> tag in to <p> tag if there is no style attribute in the tag using following javascript regex. (Soruce html at the end)

// if <div> has any attribute then do not convert in <p> tag
str = str.replace(/<div>([\w\W]*?)<\/div>/gi, '<p>$2</p>');

But the output of this regx is weird

OUTPUT HTML: Notice the unexpected '<p>$2</p>' at the end and Zoltan and congratulation text goes missing.

<br>
@abc Semantics
<br>
<a href="http://abc.com">http://abc.com</a>
<br>
xxxx5555
<br>
Mail address:
<a target="blank" href="/abc-abc-semantics">@abc</a>
<br>
<br>
<b>
Sub:
</b>
<br>
<br>
Hi abc,&nbsp;<p>$2</p><p>$2</p>;<p>$2</p><p>$2</p>

//Original HTML on which I am applying the regx

<br> 
  @abc Semantics 
<br> 
  <a href="http://abc.com">http://abc.com</a> 
<br> 
  xxxx5555 
<br> 
  Mail address: <a href="/abc-abc-semantics" target="blank">@abc</a> 
<br> 
<br> 
  <b> Sub: </b> 
<br> <br> 
Hi abc,&nbsp;
<div><br></div>

<div>congratulations :D</div>

<div><br></div>
;
<div>Zoltan</div>

Answer 1

There is no group 2 in your regex, so $2 is taken as $2 only, and no replacement it done.

You need to use $1: –

str = str.replace(/<div>([\w\W]*?)<\/div>/gi, '<p>$1</p>');

See demo on http://fiddle.re/v0jb