Question

I have some XML which I want to extract via a javascript regular expression. An example of the XML is shown below:

<rules><and><gt propName="Unit" value="5" type="System.Int32"/><or><startsWith propName="DeviceType"/></or></and></rules>

I’m having problems extracting just the xml names “gt” and “startsWith”. For example, with the following expression

<(.+?)\s

I get:

“<rules><and><gt”

rather than just “gt”.

Can anyone supply the correct expression?

Answer 1

Well, \s matches whitespace. So you actually tell the regex engine to:

<(.+?)\s
^^    ^
||    \ until you find a whitespace
|\ slurp in anything (but whitespace)
\ as long as it starts with an opening pointy bracket

You could, for example use:

<([^\s>]+?)

but you should always consider this.