# Regexp Help

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/regexp-help/172796>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [July 28, 2009, 8:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/regexp-help/172796 "2009-07-28T08:12:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jillyh0](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/e47c2d/32.png) [@jillyh0](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jillyh0)\
**Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 8:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/regexp-help/172796/1 "2009-07-28T08:12:04Z")

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Hi,

I am looking for a way to do the following:

I have some html in strings, mostly links (i.e. ). I need to delete these lines. I’ve been  
trying to do this, but it’s not working out:

question.gsub! ("\<a href="/([.]+)/" \>$/i", “”)  
or also: question.gsub! ("\<a href="/([a-zA-z0-9]+)/" \>$/i", “”)

(and various permutations of these two).

How would one go about this?

Thanks,  
Jillian

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jillyh0](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/e47c2d/32.png) [@jillyh0](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jillyh0)\
**Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 9:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/regexp-help/172796/2 "2009-07-28T09:00:43Z")

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Jillian K. wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I am looking for a way to do the following:
> 
> I have some html in strings, mostly links (i.e. [). I need to delete these lines. I’ve been  
> trying to do this, but it’s not working out:](http://mysite.com)
> 
> [ 
> 
> question.gsub! (“\<a href="/([.]+)/" \>$/i”, “”)  
> or also: question.gsub! (“\<a href="/([a-zA-z0-9]+)/" \>$/i”, “”)
> 
>  
> 
> (and various permutations of these two).
> 
>  
> 
> How would one go about this?
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks,  
> Jillian
> 
> ](http://mysite.com)

[](http://mysite.com)

[q = ‘Hello](http://mysite.com)[world](http://mysite.com)[.’](http://mysite.com)

[ 

result = q.gsub(/\<a.\*?\>/, “”)  
puts result

 

–output:–  
Hello world.

](http://mysite.com)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jillyh0](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/e47c2d/32.png) [@jillyh0](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jillyh0)\
**Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 12:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/regexp-help/172796/3 "2009-07-28T12:30:38Z")

</div>

I would write like

result = q.gsub(/\<[^\>]\*\>/, “”)

Thanks

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jillyh0](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/e47c2d/32.png) [@jillyh0](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jillyh0)\
**Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 8:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/regexp-help/172796/4 "2009-07-28T20:04:22Z")

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On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 10:20 AM, Kai König  
[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)wrote:

> Why not =\>
> 
> doc.xpath(‘//a’)[0].attributes[“href”].to\_s  
> =\> “[http://mysite.com](http://mysite.com)”

Actually, doc.content would do what the op requested.

Ray

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jillyh0](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/e47c2d/32.png) [@jillyh0](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jillyh0)\
**Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/regexp-help/172796/5 "2009-07-28T19:21:02Z")

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Why not =\>

irb(main):001:0\> require ‘nokogiri’  
=\> true  
irb(main):002:0\> doc = Nokogiri::HTML(\<\<-eohtml)  
irb(main):003:1"   
irb(main):004:1"   
irb(main):005:1" [Bla](http://mysite.com)  
irb(main):006:1"   
irb(main):007:1"   
irb(main):008:1" eohtml

doc.xpath(‘//a’)[0].attributes[“href”].to\_s  
=\> “[http://mysite.com](http://mysite.com)”

[http://tenderlovemaking.com/2008/10/30/nokogiri-is-released/](http://tenderlovemaking.com/2008/10/30/nokogiri-is-released/)  
Cheers