regex help

[Pig]

I am using the following pattern to match img tags that don't have alt tags.

/img\s+((width|height|border|class|id|src|usemap|hspace|vspace|onClick|onclick)=(\'|\")[^(\'|\")]+(\'|\")\s*)+>/

I would like it to not match when the src attribute contains 'spacer'. Nothing I have tried works. Any suggestions?

[asmo309]

you could probably use a negative look ahead operator, i don't remember that syntax off hand though. the other option is to do it two fold, first capturing all img tags:
/(<\simg\b[^<>]>)/

and then exlude ones that do match

/\balt\s*=/

[Pig]

Due to the way this code is being implemented, I need to do the whole thing in one shot and also cannot do look behind assertions.

Any other thoughts?

[asmo309]

So this won't work for you?

<img\b(?!.alt\s=)[^<>]*>

[Pig]

The pattern is stored in an XML file, and the parser chokes on < and >. It's making life very difficult.

[asmo309]

Try using &lt; for < and &gt; for >

if that doesn't work try wrapping the whole thing in
<![CDATA[...]]>

[asmo309]

oh and if you put it in cdata you should use the literal < and >