Links RegExp

[mburt]

I'm trying to make a regular expression which will filter links on a page. I've tried to figure this out, but can't:

var content = "";
onload=function() {
var reg = /(<a ).*(<\/a>)/gi
var str = document.body.innerHTML;
if (reg.test(str)) {
	var match = str.match(reg);
	for (i=0;i<match.length;i++) {
		content+="\n<br>"+match[i];
		}
	}
}

Say if I had:

<div id="links"></div>
<br><input type="button" value="grablinks" onclick="links.innerHTML=content;alert(content)">
<div>
<br><a href="#">LInk 1</a>
<a href="#" onclick="alert(content)">my link</a>
</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.google.ca">google</a></li>
<li><a href="#">LInk 4</a></li>
<li><a href="#">LInk 3</a></li>
</ul>
<a href="#">m ylin ek</a>

On my page, sometimes it would pick up the </li> as well.

[BLiZZaRD]

What if you add a space between the </a> and the </li>? Either a real space or the HTML code equivalent?

[Twey]

Never parse HTML with regex. It's too complex for that. You've a full-featured parser at your fingertips; use it.

Array.prototype.map = function(f) {
  var r = [];
  for(var i = 0; i < this.length; ++i)
    r[i] = f(this[i]);
  return r;
};

var content = Array.prototype.map.call(
  document.links,
  function(a) {
    return a.href;
  }
).join("\n<br>");

[mburt]

Ah... I forgot about document.links. Thanks Twey, silly me

[Twey]

document.getElementsByTagName("a") was available too

[mburt]

Oh yeah... I forgot again. I was hoping to implement it in PHP after too so I could generate a list of the links on a particular page.

[Twey]

For PHP, use XML_HTMLSax.