html - RegEx match open tags except XHTML self-contained tags -

i need match of these opening tags:

<p> <a href="foo"> 

but not these:

<br /> <hr class="foo" /> 

i came , wanted make sure i've got right. capturing a-z.

<([a-z]+) *[^/]*?> 

i believe says:

• find less-than, then
• find (and capture) a-z 1 or more times, then
• find 0 or more spaces, then
• find character 0 or more times, greedy, except /, then
• find greater-than

do have right? , more importantly, think?

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have tried using xml parser instead?

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