c# - Regular Expression - Match But Exclude? -

i have simple task of trying find , replace special characters within string. regex working there italics tags within string not want replace however; requirement me replace independent "<" , ">" characters causing italics tags morphed. there way me match special characters exclude italics pattern? here code:

string sampletext = "<i>this should in italics</i> ¶ character needs removed";  string spattern = "[―&<>♫♪–‧₢₳-⅓⅟□¡¢£¤¥¦§¨©ª«¬®¯°±²³´µ¶•¸¹º»¼½¾¿ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕ×ØÙÚÛÜÝÞßàáãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôö÷øùüýþÿŒœŠšŸŽžƒ˜-‰›¢€°]"; string replacepattern = "";  string text = system.text.regularexpressions.regex.replace(sampletext, spattern, replacepattern, system.text.regularexpressions.regexoptions.ignorecase); 

when program executes back:

ithis should in italics/i character needs removed 

so possible me match special characters exclude italics tags? if not possible solution can think of removing italics tags string processing , validate result regex put italics tags in..

any ideas?

here's easy way:

string sampletext = "<i>this should in italics</i> ¶ character needs removed";  string spattern = "(</?i>)|[―&<>♫♪–‧₢₳-⅓⅟□¡¢£¤¥¦§¨©ª«¬®¯°±²³´µ¶•¸¹º»¼½¾¿ÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕ×ØÙÚÛÜÝÞßàáãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôö÷øùüýþÿŒœŠšŸŽžƒ˜-‰›¢€°]"; string replacepattern = "$1";  string text = regex.replace(sampletext, spattern, replacepattern, regexoptions.ignorecase);  console.writeline(text);  // <i>this should in italics</i>  character needs removed 

but work <i> , </i> tags. can expand other tags pretty (e.g. "(</?\w+>)|..." simple tag without attributes) if more complicated that, i'd recommend parsing input xml first, , applying pattern text of nodes you're interested in.