Question

I have this html:

<a href="http://www.site.com/">This is the content.</a>

I just need to get rid of the anchor tag html around the content text, so that all I end up with is “This is the content”.

Can I do this using Regex.Replace?

Answer 1

Your regex: <a[^>]+?>(.*?)</a>

Check this Regex with the Regex-class and iterate through the result collection
and you should get your inner text.

String text = "<a href=\"link.php\">test</a>";

Regex rx = new Regex("<a[^>]+?>(.*?)</a>");
// Find matches.
MatchCollection matches = rx.Matches(text);

// Report the number of matches found.
Console.WriteLine("{0} matches found. \n", matches.Count);

// Report on each match.
foreach (Match match in matches)
{
    Console.WriteLine(match.Value);

    Console.WriteLine("Groups:");
    foreach (var g in match.Groups)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(g.ToString());
    }
}

Console.ReadLine();

Output:

  1 matches found. 
  <a href=\"link.php\">test</a> 
  Groups:
  <a href=\"link.php\">test</a> 
  test

The match expression in () is stored in the second item of match‘s Groups collection (the first item is the whole match itself). Each expression in () gets into the Groups collection. See the MSDN for further information.