Question

What i need is very simple. If link or word is empty or whitespace, not match.

<a href="link">anything</a> - match
<a href="">anything</a>     - not match
<a href="link"></a>         - not match
<a href=" ">anything</a>    - not match
<a href="link"> </a>        - not match
<a href=" "> </a>           - not match
<a href=""> </a>            - not match
<a href=" "></a>            - not match
<a href=""></a>             - not match

What i tried first;

<a href="(.*?)">(.*?)</a>

and i know ^a means NOT a. But only ^ is not valid. So what syntax means NOT EMPTY?

Note: I am aware of there can be other attributes in an a tag.

Answer 1

Try this:

<a href="[^"\s]+"[^>]*>[^<\s]+</a>