Regex help

[werd]

Total regex newbie here. Been banging my head on this for a while and would appreciate any help or guidance...

I have a snippet of html that I'm trying to parse for the 'id=' values (alphanumeric). Here's the html:

<TD id=AB029E vAlign=top><WBR></WBR><SPAN id=WD029F-r class=aBarItmBtn cancollapse="false" show="true"><A onkeydown="return me.ur_Button_keypress(event);" id=AF00dF class=urBtnStd onclick="return me.ur_Button_click(event);" href="javascript:void(0);" ct="B" st="" ocl="return sapWD_Standard_Button_click(this,event);">Button1Text</A></SPAN><WBR></WBR><SPAN id=WD02A0 class=urTSep cancollapse="false" show="true"></SPAN><WBR></WBR><SPAN id=WD02A1-r class=urTbarItmBtn cancollapse="false" show="true"><A onkeydown="return me.ur_Button_keypress(event);" id=WD02A1 class=urBtnStd title="Complete the data input for a single evidence in expense settlement and reflect it in the Detail List." onclick="return me.ur_Button_click(event);" href="javascript:void(0);" ct="B" st="" ocl="return sapWD_Standard_Button_click(this,event);">Button2Text</A></SPAN><WBR></WBR><SPAN id=WD02A2-r class=urTbarItmBtn etc...

So, I'm trying to capture the 6-digit (alphanumeric) id tag value associated with "Button2Text", which, in this case, would be "WD02A1". This is the "id=" that first precedes the "Button2Text" string, but my attempt of creating a RegEx pattern so far is:

\bid=([[:alnum:]]{6,6})\b(?:[[:print:]]{1,999})>Button2Text</A>

However, this captures the first "id=" value which is AB029E. Since I'm trying to create a generalized function to capture "id=" values, I can't be certain what other "tags" (eg. onclick=, title=, ct=, ocl=) are going to appear. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Edited December 27, 2010 by werd

[UEZ]

Here my version:

$html = '<TD id=AB029E vAlign=top><WBR></WBR><SPAN id=WD029F-r class=aBarItmBtn cancollapse="false" show="true"><A onkeydown="return me.ur_Button_keypress(event);" id=AF00dF class=urBtnStd onclick="return me.ur_Button_click(event);" href="javascript:void(0);" ct="B" st="" ocl="return sapWD_Standard_Button_click(this,event);">Button1Text</A></SPAN><WBR></WBR><SPAN id=WD02A0 class=urTSep cancollapse="false" show="true"></SPAN><WBR></WBR><SPAN id=WD02A1-r class=urTbarItmBtn cancollapse="false" show="true"><A onkeydown="return me.ur_Button_keypress(event);" id=WD02A1 class=urBtnStd title="Complete the data input for a single evidence in expense settlement and reflect it in the Detail List." onclick="return me.ur_Button_click(event);" href="javascript:void(0);" ct="B" st="" ocl="return sapWD_Standard_Button_click(this,event);">Button2Text</A></SPAN><WBR></WBR><SPAN id=WD02A2-r class=urTbarItmBt'
$chk = "Button2Text"
$aString = StringRegExp($html, ".*id=(.*) class.*>" & $chk & "<.*", 3)
MsgBox(0, "Test", $aString[0])

I'm not sure whether I understood you properly.

Br,

UEZ

[GEOSoft]

To Capture only that id in an array

$aSRE = StringRegExp($sHTML, "(?i)id=[\x22\x27\s]*([[:alnum:]]{6}).+Button2Text", 1)
If NOT @Error Then
    MsgBox(4096, "Result, $aSRE[0])
EndIf

To capture all of the ids in an array

#Include<array.au3>
$aSRE = StringRegExp($sHTML, "(?i)id=[\x22\x27\s]*([[:alnum:]]{6}).+?</a>", 3)
If NOT @Error Then
    _ArrayDisplay($aSRE, "Results")
EndIf

To return a string with only that id

$sStr = StringRegExpReplace($sHTML, "(?i).*id=[\x22\x27\s]*([[:alnum:]]{6}).+?Button2Text.+", "$1")
If NOT @Error Then
    MsgBox(4096, "Result", $sStr)
Else
    MsgBox(4096, "Error", "Error: " & @Error & @CRLF & "Extended: " & @Extended)
EndIf

All were tested using your input string and the PCRE Toolkit in my signature so if you get any errors it's because you didn't give us the right information.

Edited December 27, 2010 by GEOSoft

[werd]

thank you all for the input. i'll need to review and learn from this... This regex syntax is quite confusing for me, but i appreciate your helpful suggestions.

[GEOSoft]

thank you all for the input. i'll need to review and learn from this... This regex syntax is quite confusing for me, but i appreciate your helpful suggestions.

No problem

Try the tool I mentioned above for learning, it's in my signature. You will be able to get the source of a URL and work with it directly.

[werd]

[deleted]

Edited December 27, 2010 by werd

[PsaltyDS]

That is going about it the hard way.

Parsing HTML to get attributes of various elements is what the browser if for. Let it do all the work for you with the IE.au3 UDF:

$colLinks = _IELinkGetCollection($oIE)
For $oLink In $colLinks
    If $oLink.innerText & "" = "Button2Text" Then
        MsgBox(64, "Found", "Button2Text ID = " & $oLink.id)
        ExitLoop
    EndIf
Next