RE: Escaping Ampersands in XML

[Toby Stuart]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ben Siders [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 7:38 AM
> To: Perl
> Subject: Escaping Ampersands in XML
> 
> 
> I've got a real easy one here (in theory).  I have some XML 
> files that 
> were generated by a program, but generated imperfectly.  There's some 
> naked ampersands that need to be converted to &.  I need a regexp 
> that will detect them and change them.  Sounds easy enough.
> 
> The pattern I want to match is an ampersand that is NOT immediately 
> followed by a few characters and then a semicolon.  Any ideas?
> 
> This is the best I've come up with so far.  It should match 
> an ampersand 
> whose following characters, up to five, are not semicolons.  I don't 
> feel that this is a great solution.  I'm hoping the community 
> can think 
> of a better one.
> 
> $line =~ s/\&[^;]{,5}/\&/g;

Try this one:

  s/&(?!\w+;)/&/g



> 
> I'm hoping that'll match something like:  "<tag>Blah data 
> &</tag>", but 
> NOT match "<tag>Blah &amp;</tag>".
> 
> I'm not sure if I'm on the right track here.  I also can't 
> match other 
> escaped characters such as: "<tag>Copyright &copy; 2003</tag>".
> 
> 
> 
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