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How can I remove tags which have no attributes?
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Subject Author Date
How can I remove tags which have no attributes? Oberon 05-28-2005
Posted by Oberon on May 28, 2005, 6:31 pm
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I have a large HTML document. It has hundreds of <span>s which
have no attributes so these <span>s are redundant.

How can I remove these tags automatically?

The document also has <span>s with style attributes that I don't
want to remove.



Posted by Jim Moe on May 29, 2005, 10:42 am
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Oberon wrote:
> I have a large HTML document. It has hundreds of <span>s which
> have no attributes so these <span>s are redundant.
>
> How can I remove these tags automatically?
>
Use a macro in your editor. Have it search for "<span>" and delete it;
then search for "</span>" and delete it. Repeat as required.
This works if there are no nested spans.
Or use the HTMLTidy method as Tim described.

--
jmm dash list (at) sohnen-moe (dot) com
(Remove .AXSPAMGN for email)


Posted by Dr John Stockton on May 29, 2005, 10:10 pm
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, dated Sun, 29 May 2005 15:59:17, seen in news:comp.infosystems.www.aut
>
>I just did a little experiment with a text editor and the HTML tidy
>program. I made a small test HTML file with some <span>bogus</span>
>contents splattered throughout it. Used the search and replace option in
>the text editor to replace all <span> opening tags with nothing, then ran
>HTML tidy on it. It stripped out the erroneous closing </span> tags.


If you have

<span A> aaa <span> bbb <span B> ccc </span> ddd </span> eee </span>

in which A and B are useful, then, after you have removed the <span>
between aaa & bbb, how can TIDY possibly tell that it is the </span>
between ddd & eee that should be removed, and not the final one?

ISTM better to use something like MiniTrue or SED to remove the tags
from each detectable instance of
<span> *something*not*including*<span>*for*sure* </span>
which with any luck will remove the great majority, and should do no
harm. To allow *everything*not*including*<span>*for*sure may be
difficult; but to allow *everything*not*including*<*for*sure* may catch
a sufficient proportion to be useful.

Alternatively, one might write a program to do it in a general high-
level language program, one that tracks the nesting level so that it can
remove the correct one.

Caveat : ISTM that CSS might, in some version, allow styling <span> with
added whitespace. If that should be, removing <span> from bbba<span>bbb
could make a visible difference.

--
© John Stockton, Surrey, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v4.00 MIME. ©
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.
I find MiniTrue useful for viewing/searching/altering files, at a DOS prompt;
free, DOS/Win/UNIX, <URL:http://www.idiotsdelight.net/minitrue/> Update hope?

Posted by Tim on May 30, 2005, 1:38 pm
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>> I just did a little experiment with a text editor and the HTML tidy
>> program. I made a small test HTML file with some <span>bogus</span>
>> contents splattered throughout it. Used the search and replace option in
>> the text editor to replace all <span> opening tags with nothing, then ran
>> HTML tidy on it. It stripped out the erroneous closing </span> tags.


> If you have
>
> <span A> aaa <span> bbb <span B> ccc </span> ddd </span> eee </span>
>
> in which A and B are useful, then, after you have removed the <span>
> between aaa & bbb, how can TIDY possibly tell that it is the </span>
> between ddd & eee that should be removed, and not the final one?

Well, I did say do a test. It will depend on the data that you're working
with... Of course, if you have nested spans you're going to need something
smarter.

--
If you insist on e-mailing me, use the reply-to address (it's real but
temporary). But please reply to the group, like you're supposed to.

This message was sent without a virus, please delete some files yourself.

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