Compile string cases into list

Question

I have a html formatted string:

s = "<span class=\"ads__unit__content__details\"> <span>Data I want to extract</span> </span> <p class=\"ads__unit__content__keys\"> \
<span>More data I want to extract</span> <span>Even more data I want to extract</span> </p> <p>"

I am trying to extract the different parts using a string pattern:

StringCases[s, "<span>"~~x__~~"</span>"-> x]

But this somehow just works on the outermost tag pairs. This is the resulting output:

    {"<span>Data I want to extract</span> </span> <p \class=\"ads__unit__content__keys\"> <span>More data I want to \
extract</span> <span>Even more data I want to extract</span>"}

Why does it ignore the

</span>

tags in the middle of the string? I would expect a list with all the substrings separated..

Answer 1

StringCases[s, "<span>" ~~ Shortest[x___] ~~ "</span>" -> x]

{"Data I want to extract", "More data I want to extract", "Even more data I want to extract"}

Shortest >> Details:

• If no explicit Shortest or Longest is given, ordinary expression patterns are normally effectively assumed to be Shortest[p], while string patterns are assumed to be Longest[p].