Question

I have a function that wraps text with a span

$(".ui-content").html(function (i, v) 
  {  
     return v.replace(/(CANADA)/gi, '<span class="query">$1</span>'); 
});

However when I pass in the term "div" or "span" or "a" which are html, the page gets messed up badly of course.

What can I change the regex to remove only text that is not part of a html code like <strong> but does work on A strong person is a helpful friend

Answer 1

Same concept, as @elclanrs, but with an imitation of negative look behind:

$(".ui-content").html(function (i, v) {       
     return v.replace(/([^</])(strong)/gi, ' <span class="query">$2</span> ');
});​

http://jsfiddle.net/39VMe/

Also a good article about how to treat certain limitations of JavaScript regexp: http://blog.stevenlevithan.com/archives/mimic-lookbehind-javascript