import re
starttag = re.compile(r'<[a-zA-Z][-_.:a-zA-Z0-9]*\s*('
        r'\s*([a-zA-Z_][-:.a-zA-Z_0-9]*)(\s*=\s*'
        r'(\'[^\']*\'|"[^"]*"|[-a-zA-Z0-9./,:;+*%?!&$\(\)_#=~@]'
        r'[][\-a-zA-Z0-9./,:;+*%?!&$\(\)_#=~\'"@]*(?=[\s>/<])))?'
    r')*\s*/?\s*(?=[<>])')

foo = '<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="border-collapse'
starttag.match(foo)