print start of html tags

Question

I want to print out the first html tags thats has attributes

    
test
    
test2
    
         


        
      

Answer 1

You should use a non-greedy match for any number of characters to the left of the =, so:

r'<.*?=.*?>'

That will match a <, followed by a minimum number of characters, followed by a =, followed by the minimum number of characters until the >.

What you had:

r''

Means an optional <, followed by a =, followed by any string going up to the >. Since the < is optional and would only match if right before the =, you end up with no matches for it.