# Can't control regular expressions

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/cant-control-regular-expressions/144401>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [July 29, 2008, 12:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/cant-control-regular-expressions/144401 "2008-07-29T12:35:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 12:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/cant-control-regular-expressions/144401/1 "2008-07-29T12:35:48Z")

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Hello guys,

I need to extract from an html file all the scripts. So I have written  
the  
following regular expression for a first test:

%r|\<script(.+)script\>|m

The problem I am having is that the expression takes the first . So it matches the beginning of the first script  
in  
the document and the end of the last script in the document with  
everything in the middle. I want to extract just the scripts one by one.  
How do I do it?

Thanks for your help,

Guillermo

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 12:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/cant-control-regular-expressions/144401/2 "2008-07-29T12:50:28Z")

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On Jul 29, 12:34 pm, removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote:

> I need to extract from an html file all the scripts. So I have written the  
> following regular expression for a first test:
> 
> %r|\<script(.+)script\>|m
> 
> The problem I am having is that the expression takes the first . So it matches the beginning of the first script in  
> the document and the end of the last script in the document with  
> everything in the middle. I want to extract just the scripts one by one.  
> How do I do it?

You can use the ‘?’ regexp operator to make a lazy match rather than a  
greedy.

%r|\<script(.+?)script\>|m

However, I suggest trying Hpricot for more robust HTML parsing.

Lars

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 12:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/cant-control-regular-expressions/144401/3 "2008-07-29T12:59:15Z")

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On Jul 29, 2008, at 12:34 PM, removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote:

> the very last script\>. So it matches the beginning of the first  
> script in  
> the document and the end of the last script in the document with  
> everything in the middle. I want to extract just the scripts one by  
> one.  
> How do I do it?
> 
> Thanks for your help,
> 
> Guillermo

Hi, regexps are not the right tool for this. You can find some  
explanation on why that is, you can  
will find some in this topic:

[http://groups.google.com/group/ruby-talk-google/browse\_thread/thread/2d86d106b5c8797a](http://groups.google.com/group/ruby-talk-google/browse_thread/thread/2d86d106b5c8797a)

Regards,  
Florian G.  
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