Regex Match containing string between 2 characters

Question

I'm trying to match a string in an HTTP page between >< .

I'm having trouble with the first > as it also matches subsequent chars. eg. in this example

<a href="https://stackoverflow.com" class="-logo js-gps-track"
                        data-gps-track="top_nav.click({is_current:false, location:3, destination:8})">
                        <span class="-img _glyph">Stack Overflow</span>
                    </a>

I would only want to match Stack Overflow . I've currently got \\>([^\\>].*Stack Overflow.*)\\< but that matches everything after the first > ie

><span class="-img _glyph">Stack Overflow<

Any help would be great

Answer 1

It'd probably be more elegant to use DOMParser, and take the textContent of .-img._glyph :

 const str = `<a href="https://stackoverflow.com" class="-logo js-gps-track" data-gps-track="top_nav.click({is_current:false, location:3, destination:8})"> <span class="-img _glyph">Stack Overflow</span> </a>`; console.log( new DOMParser().parseFromString(str, 'text/html').querySelector('.-img._glyph').textContent );

If you had to use regex, instead of repeating . (which matches anything), repeat [^<>] (which matches anything which isn't a < or > ) on either side of the Stack Overflow part, while looking ahead and behind for < and > :

(?<=>)[^<>]*Stack Overflow[^<>]*(?=<)

(If you can't use lookbehind, match the initial > and capture everything afterwards, then extract the capture group)

Answer 2

Try using lookbehind and lookahead assertions , as in this regex: (?<=>)Stack Overflow(?=<)

 const text = `<a href="https://stackoverflow.com" class="-logo js-gps-track" data-gps-track="top_nav.click({is_current:false, location:3, destination:8})"> <span class="-img _glyph">Stack Overflow</span> </a>`; const regex = /(?<=>)Stack Overflow(?=<)/g; const found = text.match(regex); console.log(found);