I have a string

"<li style="-moz-float-edge: content-box">... that in <i><b><a href="/wiki/Laßt_uns_sorgen,_laßt_uns_wachen,_BWV_213" title="Lat uns sorgen, lat uns wachen, BWV 213">Die Wahl des Herkules</a></b></i>, Hercules must choose between the good cop and the bad cop?<br style="clear:both;" />" 

and I want to get the last tag

"<br style="clear:both;" />"

My re - r'[<]([\w] \b)(.^<) [/][>]' doesn't work. I expected to find match by excluding '<' symbol.

https://regex101.com/r/BDD30S/1

CodePudding user response：

Note: Using Regex to parse HTML is a terrible idea!

However, I can not resist a challenge, so here goes:

import re

haystack = '<li style="-moz-float-edge: content-box">... that in <i><b><a href="/wiki/Laßt_uns_sorgen,_laßt_uns_wachen,_BWV_213" title="Lat uns sorgen, lat uns wachen, BWV 213">Die Wahl des Herkules</a></b></i>, Hercules must choose between the good cop and the bad cop?<br style="clear:both;" />'

needle = r'(<[^<>]*>)'
matches = re.findall(needle, haystack)
if matches:
  print(matches[-1])

This code finds the last non-nested tag. It fails horribly if the element has < or > anywhere in its attributes or text content. If you had an opening and a closing tag for an element, this would find only the closing tag.

<br style="clear:both;" />

CodePudding user response：

If you really want to use regex, do this:

(<[^<>] >)[^<>]*$ /m

1. Use the /m flag along with $ anchor to mark the end line
2. [^<>] captures everything inside the HTML tag
3. [^<>]* ensures that there can be stuff between the last tag and the end of the line
4. The expected result is available in the capturing group

Demo

CodePudding user response：

To get the last tag on the same line:

.*(<[^<>\n]*>)

Explanation

• .* Match the whole line
• (<[^<>\n]*>) Capture in group 1 <...>

Regex demo

---

The last tag in all lines:

[\s\S]*(<[^<>] >)

Explanation

• [\s\S]* Match all characters
• (<[^<>] >) Capture in group 1 <...>

Regex demo

CodePudding user response：

This finds the last tag as requested:

Regex: r'<br.*$'

Code:

import re

my_string = '<li style="-moz-float-edge: content-box">... that in <i><b><a href="/wiki/Laßt_uns_sorgen,_laßt_uns_wachen,_BWV_213" title="Lat uns sorgen, lat uns wachen, BWV 213">Die Wahl des Herkules</a></b></i>, Hercules must choose between the good cop and the bad cop?<br style="clear:both;" />'

last_tag = re.search(r'<br.*$', my_string)

print(last_tag[0])

Output:

<br style="clear:both;" />