I'm developing a new tool (keyword analysis) that uses regular expression patterns to query or spider pieces of web pages. I works just fine with title tags and meta tags, but the problem, for instance, is querying code that ends with ">, like alt tags.

I tried : regExp.Pattern = "alt=""(.*)?"""

But this only worked if the alt text ended with ">, but when there is more like:

...alt="text text text" style="padding-top:2px;">

I would get:

...text text text" style="padding-top:2px;

I only want the alt text. I also tried:
regExp.Pattern = "\balt=""(.*)?""\b"

This gave the same result, just without the "padding-top:2px;

Why won't the pattern stop after the second quotation mark?

If anyone can help, I would really appreciate it. I've read alot on the web about regular expressions but nothing helped. Thanks!

I know no ASP, but if the regEx syntax is the same as PHP and Perl, then you might try this:
Also I'm guessing that "" is the escape sequence for " in ASP?

regExp.Pattern = "alt=""([^""]*)?"""

[^xyz] matches any single character except x, y or z, so [^"]* matches any string with no " in it.

Oberon, thanks. I will test this some time today and let you know if it works out. Again, thanks.

Glad I could help. I'm not entirely certain how ASP handles quote marks within quoted strings, so you may have to adjust it slightly. In PHP I would write:
'#alt="([^"]*)?"#'
Using single quotes on the outside so the double ones are taken literally and don't need escaping. # is the pattern delimiter, but it seems ASP doesn't require these.
If anyone knows more about escape sequences in ASP, feel free to correct me on any of this.

You were right the first time, top put a double quote inside a string, escape it using 2 double quotes. Or concatanate it like this
StringX = StringY & Chr(34) & StringZ

Oberon, thank you, thank you, thank you!
This one regExp.Pattern = "alt=""([^""]*)?"""
worked perfectly! I was racking my brains for four hours and I'd be doing this again today if it wasn't for you. I truely appreciate it.

Oberon. You seem to have a great understanding of regular expressions. I hate to be a bother. I just have one more regular expression question. Is there any way to expand the "alt=""([^""]*)?""" to query every alt tag on the page and ignore everything inbetween them?

Thanks again for your help.

For that sort of effect I would reach for something like PHP's preg_match_all() which returns an array of strings that match. Does ASP have a similar thing?

I don't know. I've written a good amount of asp and have never come accross anything similar, but there must be. I would find it hard to believe that asp is that limited. I guess there is no quick fix using the regular expression pattern. I'll try searching for preg_match_all() in relation to asp. Thanks again.

Oberon, thanks again for all of your help. I was able to find an ASP alternative preg_match_all() using the For/Next loop

For each match in matches
<statement>
Next

This worked like a charm. Now the rest of the work should be pretty standard.