# Html parsing using regular expressions

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/html-parsing-using-regular-expressions/73542>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [October 25, 2006, 4:57am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/html-parsing-using-regular-expressions/73542 "2006-10-25T04:57:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![shinkaku](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/4da419/32.png) [@shinkaku](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/shinkaku)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 4:57am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/html-parsing-using-regular-expressions/73542/1 "2006-10-25T04:57:11Z")

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I’m new to Ruby and trying to use regular expressions to parse an html  
file. The page is a large table with no spaces in the html code. I want  
to count the number of times

 or \<tr ‘anything’\> occurs. I’m stuck  
on trying to match every variety of 

I’ve tried

op\_file = File.read(htmlfile)  
if op\_file =~ /(\<tr(.\*?)\>)+/

but it catches the first \<tr and matches all the way to the end of the  
file. Anyone have any advice on matching and counting?

-Shinkaku

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![shinkaku](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/4da419/32.png) [@shinkaku](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/shinkaku)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 7:03am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/html-parsing-using-regular-expressions/73542/2 "2006-10-25T07:03:47Z")

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On 10/24/06, Anthony W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> I’m new to Ruby and trying to use regular expressions to parse an html  
> file.

Don’t. Use Hpricot instead. Your brain will thank you for it.

I haven’t used Hpricot, but I’ve heard great things about it; I’ve  
tried to do HTML parsing with regexen, and it’s a mook’s game.

-austin

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![shinkaku](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/4da419/32.png) [@shinkaku](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/shinkaku)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2006, 7:21am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/html-parsing-using-regular-expressions/73542/3 "2006-10-25T07:21:49Z")

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Anthony W. wrote:

> but it catches the first \<tr and matches all the way to the end of the  
> file. Anyone have any advice on matching and counting?

You need to tell us whether you have read the replies you received to  
this  
same question when you asked it eight hours ago. I answered your  
question,  
several others did also, you have not given any indication that you saw  
the  
replies.

Here is one answer:

#!/usr/bin/ruby -w

path=“path-to-HTML-page”

data = File.read(path)

array = data.scan(%r{\<tr.\*?\>})

puts array.size # gives a count of occurrences

puts array # shows the matches

Please read replies before posting again.