Python regex to remove all tags that aren't between two other tags

Question

I am using python and want to remove all html tags from a string that aren't enclosed in certain tags. In this example, I want to remove all the html tags that aren't enclosed in the <header>tags</header> and also not remove that enclosing tag as well.

For example:

<h1>Morning</h1>
<header>
    <h1>Afternoon</h1>
    <h2>Evening</h2>
</header>
<h2>Night</h2>

Result:

Morning
<header>
    <h1>Afternoon</h1>
    <h2>Evening</h2>
</header>
Night

I've spent hours on it but no luck. I know that the following will find ALL tags:

re.sub('<.*?>', '', mystring)

And this will find anything within the header tags:

re.sub('<header>.*?</header>', '', mystring)

But how do I negate it, so that the first regex ignores what the second regex finds? Any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you! :)

Do not use regex to process HTML (stackoverflow.com/questions/701166/…). Learn how to use Beautifulsoup and make your life much easier. — Josep Valls
– Josep Valls, Commented Jul 6, 2017 at 23:46
I'm using it to process html documents that are in a very specific format (each document is the exact same format and has many strict rules on what's written) so there won't be any of those wild html tags within tags and etc. I'm in need of this asap so I don't really have time right now but will definitely learn to use Beautifulsoup in the near future! — cullan
– cullan, Commented Jul 6, 2017 at 23:57
@cullan I really, really recommend BS4. All it takes is a quick pip install beautifulsoup4 followed by running the code in my answer. :) — cs95
– cs95, Commented Jul 6, 2017 at 23:58

cs95 · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-06 23:56:58Z

3

You can do this quickly and easily using BeautifulSoup, as mentioned by Josep Valls in the comments. Here's how:

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

soup = BeautifulSoup('''<h1>Morning</h1>
<header>
    <h1>Afternoon</h1>
    <h2>Evening</h2>
</header>
<h2>Night</h2>''', 'html.parser')

for tag in soup.find_all(recursive=False):
    if not tag.findChildren():
        tag.unwrap()

print(soup)

This prints out:

Morning
<header>
<h1>Afternoon</h1>
<h2>Evening</h2>
</header>
Night

answered Jul 6, 2017 at 23:56

cs95

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3 Comments

cullan Over a year ago

hey COLDSPEED, thank you for all your help, but can you modify your answer to help me with my modified question? greatly appreciated :)

cs95 Over a year ago

@cullan I'd love to help, but modifying a question and completely resetting the context is not a good idea and is not helpful to future readers. Could you please post a new question?

cs95 Over a year ago

@cullan Copy your current question and then roll back your changes. Then, post a new question.

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