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From: Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm>
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: Automating an atypical search & replace
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2024 23:13:55 -0700
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AOn Sat, 13 Jul 2024 23:39:14 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Sat, 13 Jul 2024 11:08:48 -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
> 
> > These occurrences are consistently of the form
> >     <span class='add'>arbitrary_text</span>
> > 
> > I wish to delete "<span class='add'>" and *ASSOCIATED* "</span>".
> 
> This is beyond the abilities of regular expressions. This is the point
> where you need to use an actual HTML/XML-parsing library.
> 

In general I'd agree with you. But the OP made a big deal -- in a 
different thread, for some reason -- about wanting to use minimal 
HTML, so I doubt very much there will be nested <span> ... </span> 
sequences. 

Also, the OP quite rightly wanted to confirm each change before it is 
made, so presumably if there are any nested sequences he will say no 
to that particular edit and fix it manually. 

-- 
Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA         https://BrownMath.com/
Shikata ga nai...