macro to select HTML tag

StaticGhost · May 27, 2010#12010-05-27T06:09+00:00

Hi All,

I am trying to create a macro to select a HTML tag. E.g. if I select the first "a" and run the macro with this text:

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<a href="blah"><b>some text</b></a>

the whole tag (including angle brackets) will be selected.

I am aware that macros can't loop, so it wouldn't work for selecting the outer span in this situation:

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<span>some <span>text</span></span>

but that's ok - simple case first.. maybe I will invest the time to write a JavaScript to take care of the nested case.

From earlier posts, a regex works:

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<DIV[^>]*>([^ÿ]*?)</DIV>

But you can't put ^s in a regex..

A very poor non regex version is:

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InsertMode
ColumnModeOff
HexOff
UltraEditReOn
Find Select "</^s"

But this fails to select the outer angle brackets.

Any suggestions as to how to improve this would be most welcome!

Rob

bulgrien · May 27, 2010#22010-05-27T06:26+00:00

StaticGhost wrote:you can't put ^s in a regex..

Sure, you can. You do it like this: \^s

StaticGhost · May 27, 2010#32010-05-27T06:38+00:00

Hi Bulgrien,

No, that doesn't work - ^s means "selected text", but only in UltraEdit expressions, not Perl/Unix regex, which

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<DIV[^>]*>([^ÿ]*?)</DIV>

otherwise needs. I did test it though, it doesn't work:

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InsertMode
ColumnModeOff
HexOff
PerlReOn
Find RegExp "<\^s[^>]*>([^Ã¿]*?)</\^s>"

Rob

bulgrien · May 27, 2010#42010-05-27T07:06+00:00

StaticGhost wrote:^s means "selected text", but only in UltraEdit expressions

Thanks for the clarification.
If I think of a solution that does work, I'll be sure to post it...

May 27, 2010#52010-05-27T07:57+00:00

Try this macro:

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Find Select "</^s>"
Find Up Select "<"

StaticGhost · May 27, 2010#62010-05-27T08:13+00:00

bulgrien wrote:Try this macro:
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Find Select "</^s>"
Find Up Select "<"

Nice one, and so simple - thanks Bulgrien!

Rob

Jun 03, 2010#72010-06-03T03:00+00:00

OK, here is v2 that is a bit more flexible in dealing with nested tags. To use it, put the cursor in the first tag (don’t select it or copy it) and run the macro. It will still select only to the first close tag, but each time you re-run the macro (control+m) it will expand the selection to the next tag opening or closing. This way, you can count for yourself how many nested tags there are and stop when you need to.

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InsertMode
ColumnModeOff
HexOff
UltraEditReOn
IfSel
Find RegExp Select "</++^c>++"
Else
SelectWord
Copy
Find Select "</^c>"
Find Up Select "<"
EndIf

A more detailed explanation is on my blog post: UltraEdit macro to select HTML/XML tag.

Rob

Edit 18/04/2015: An improved version of this macro was posted at macro to select HTML tag v2.

Jun 03, 2010#82010-06-03T04:42+00:00

And to do the same thing the other way, use this one.

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InsertMode
ColumnModeOff
HexOff
UltraEditReOn
IfSel
Find RegExp Up Select "</++^c>++"
Else
SelectWord
Copy
Find Up Select "</^c>"
Find Select ">"
EndIf

Personally, I have the select forward macro mapped to Control+Shift+. and the select backwards macro mapped to Control+Shift+,

Edit 18/04/2015: An improved version of this macro was posted at macro to select HTML tag v2.

bulgrien · Jun 04, 2010#92010-06-04T02:28+00:00

By the way... if you really want to use a regular expression, you certainly can:

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PerlReOn
Find Up "<"
Key LEFT ARROW
Find RegExp "(?s)<([A-Z]+)[\s,>].*</\1>"

(?s)<([A-Z]+)[\s,>].*</\1>

(?s) tells the regular expression to include newline characters when matching a . wildcard
< matches an open angle bracket
([A-Z]+) captures one or more alphabetical characters to use in the backreference: \1
[\s,>] indicates that the character following the captured text should be whitespace or a closed angle bracket
And .*</\1> of course matches everything until the backreference is found in a closing tag

It might be possible to detect and skip embedded nodes using regex lookarounds, but I haven't tried to do so.