Question

I’m trying to get all the XML out of certain tags (not just values but everything including more XML between two open and close tags) and I figured I’d use a regular expression.

My code looks like this

NSError *error2 = NULL;
NSRegularExpression *regex = [NSRegularExpression regularExpressionWithPattern:@"<PayloadPost>(.*)</PayloadPost>"
                                                                       options:NSRegularExpressionCaseInsensitive
                                                                         error:&error2];
if (error2)
{
    NSLog(@"Error %@", [error2 description]);
}

NSArray *payloadRanges=[regex matchesInString:theXMLString options:0 range:NSMakeRange(0, [theXMLString length])];
int size=[payloadRanges count];
printf("Size %d",size);

Basically I need everything in the “PayloadPost”s and yet it keeps giving me nothing. I keep getting 0 for size and I know the XML has 3 instances in it.

Can anyone help me out?

Answer 1

make sure you set the multiline flag, https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Foundation/Reference/NSRegularExpression_Class/Reference/Reference.html#//apple_ref/doc/c_ref/NSRegularExpressionDotMatchesLineSeparators

otherwise the ‘.’ character will not match the line break and your regex will match

<PayloadPost>something</PayloadPost>

but not

<PayloadPost>
something
</PayloadPost>