Regular Expressions: Can't quite figure this problem out

[Paul McGuire]

On Sep 24, 11:23 pm, "Gabriel Genellina" <gagsl-... at yahoo.com.ar>
wrote:
> En Mon, 24 Sep 2007 23:51:57 -0300, Robert Dailey <rcdai... at gmail.com>  
> escribi?:
>
> > What I meant was that it's not an option because I'm trying to learn  
> > regular
> > expressions. RE is just as built in as anything else.
>
> Ok, let's analyze what you want. You have for instance this text:
> "<action></action>"
> which should become
> "<action/>"
>
> You have to match:
> (opening angle bracket)(any word)(closing angle bracket)(opening angle  
> bracket)(slash)(same word as before)(closing angle bracket)
>
> This translates rather directly into this regular expression:
>
> r"<(\w+)></\1>"
>
> where \w+ means "one or more alphanumeric characters or _", and being  
> surrounded in () creates a group (group number one), which is  
> back-referenced as \1 to express "same word as before"
> The matched text should be replaced by (opening <)(the word  
> found)(slash)(closing >), that is: r"<\1/>"
> Using the sub function in module re:
>
> py> import re
> py> source = """
> ... <root></root>
> ... <root/>
> ... <root><frame type="image"><action></action></frame></root>
> ... <root><frame type="image"><action/></frame></root>
> ... """
> py> print re.sub(r"<(\w+)></\1>", r"<\1/>", source)
>
> <root/>
> <root/>
> <root><frame type="image"><action/></frame></root>
> <root><frame type="image"><action/></frame></root>
>
> Now, a more complex example, involving tags with attributes:
> <frame type="image"></frame>  -->  <frame type="image" />
>
> You have to match:
> (opening angle bracket)(any word)(any sequence of words,spaces,other  
> symbols,but NOT a closing angle bracket)(closing angle bracket)(opening  
> angle bracket)(slash)(same word as before)(closing angle bracket)
>
> r"<(\w+)([^>]*)></\1>"
>
> [^>] means "anything but a >", the * means "may occur many times, maybe  
> zero", and it's enclosed in () to create group 2.
>
> py> source = """
> ... <root></root>
> ... <root><frame type="image"></frame></root>
> ... """
> py> print re.sub(r"<(\w+)([^>]*)></\1>", r"<\1\2 />", source)
>
> <root />
> <root><frame type="image" /></root>
>
> Next step would be to allow whitespace wherever it is legal to appear -  
> left as an exercise to the reader. Hint: use \s*
>
> --
> Gabriel Genellina

And let's hope the OP doesn't have to parse anything truly nasty like:

<esolang:language name="Python" interpreter_prompt=">>>"></
esolang:language>

-- Paul