MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Regex search and replace in bulk metadata help

slantybard · 08-20-2015, 12:02 PM

I am trying to remove all html formatting from the comments in my library metadata so that when I make catalogs, the html span, div, font, stuff doesn't make the resulting catalog epub look messy.

I tried the "remove" formatting button individually, but that doesn't remove the html code from the comments section.

Then, after searching the forum, I found a pretty good, but not perfect solution, where using the S&R under the bulk metadata edit function, I used the search regex:

Code:

<[^<>]*>

and replaced it with nothing. This successfully removed 99% of the formatting html code littering my comments metadata. Unfortunately, the <br> tags were not removed and since these often show up in the comments metadata within sentences, the comments still get messed up. I have tried S&R with <br> and <\s*?[^>(br)]+\s*?>, but the <br> tags still show up.

My regex skills are not the best nor the worst, but I was wondering if anyone has any ideas that could help me remove the <br> tags in bulk?

08-20-2015, 12:02 PM	#1
slantybard my parent's oops... Posts: 492 Karma: 1477572 Join Date: Feb 2009 Device: Vx->Handera->Clie-> Axim->505->650->KPW/Aura ->L2->iOS/CBW	Regex search and replace in bulk metadata help I am trying to remove all html formatting from the comments in my library metadata so that when I make catalogs, the html span, div, font, stuff doesn't make the resulting catalog epub look messy. I tried the "remove" formatting button individually, but that doesn't remove the html code from the comments section. Then, after searching the forum, I found a pretty good, but not perfect solution, where using the S&R under the bulk metadata edit function, I used the search regex: Code: <[^<>]> and replaced it with nothing. This successfully removed 99% of the formatting html code littering my comments metadata. Unfortunately, the <br> tags were not removed and since these often show up in the comments metadata within sentences, the comments still get messed up. I have tried S&R with <br> and <\s?[^>(br)]+\s*?>, but the <br> tags still show up. My regex skills are not the best nor the worst, but I was wondering if anyone has any ideas that could help me remove the <br> tags in bulk?