Question

I need to parse a link to a zip file out of html. The name of this zipfile changes every month. Here is a snippet of the HTML I need to parse:

<a href="http://nppes.viva-it.com/NPPES_Data_Dissemination_Mar_2012.zip">

The string I need to get is “http://nppes.viva-it.com/NPPES_Data_Dissemination_Mar_2012.zip” so I can download the file using WebClient. The only portion of that zip file URL that remains constant from month to month is “http://nppes.viva-it.com/”. Is there a way using a regular expression to parse the full URL, “http://nppes.viva-it.com/NPPES_Data_Dissemination_Mar_2012.zip”, out of the HTML?

Answer 1

If there will only ever be one ZIP linked to on the page, no problem:

Regex re = new Regex(@"http://nppes\.viva-it\.com/.+\.zip");

re.Match(html).Value // To get the matched URL

Here’s a demo.