Using Boost.Spirit to extract certain tags/attributes from HTML
(?i:<imgs[^>]*srcs*=s*[""']([^<][^""']+)[^>]*s*/*>)

sehe@natty:/tmp$ time ./expressive < bench > /dev/null

real    0m2.146s
user    0m2.110s
sys 0m0.030s

typedef std::string::const_iterator It;

int main(int argc, const char *argv[])
{
    using namespace boost::xpressive;
#if DYNAMIC
    const sregex re = sregex::compile
         ("<img\s+[^\>]*?src\s*=\s*(["'])(.*?)\1");
#else
    const sregex re = "<img" >> +_s >> -*(~(set = '\','>')) >>
        "src" >> *_s >> '=' >> *_s
        >> (s1 = as_xpr('"') | ''') >> (s2 = -*_) >> s1;
#endif

    std::string s;
    smatch what;

    while (std::getline(std::cin, s))
    {
        It f = s.begin(), l = s.end();

        do
        {
            if (!regex_search(f, l, what, re))
                break;

            handle_attr("img", "src", what[2]);
            f = what[0].second;
        } while (f!=s.end());
    }

    return 0;
}

typedef std::string::const_iterator It;

int main(int argc, const char *argv[])
{
    const boost::regex re("<img\s+[^\>]*?src\s*=\s*(["'])(.*?)\1");

    std::string s;
    boost::smatch what;

    while (std::getline(std::cin, s))
    {
        It f = s.begin(), l = s.end();

        do
        {
            if (!boost::regex_search(f, l, what, re))
                break;

            handle_attr("img", "src", what[2]);
            f = what[0].second;
        } while (f!=s.end());
    }

    return 0;
}

./test < index.htm

sehe@natty:/tmp$ time ./spirit < bench > /dev/null

real    0m3.895s
user    0m3.820s
sys 0m0.070s

//#define BOOST_SPIRIT_DEBUG
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <boost/spirit/include/qi.hpp>
#include <boost/spirit/include/phoenix.hpp>

namespace qi  = boost::spirit::qi;
namespace phx = boost::phoenix;

void handle_attr(
        const std::string& elem,
        const std::string& attr,
        const std::string& value)
{
    if (elem == "img" && attr == "src")
        std::cout << "value : " << value << std::endl;
}

typedef std::string::const_iterator It;
typedef qi::space_type Skipper;

struct grammar : qi::grammar<It, Skipper>
{
    grammar() : grammar::base_type(html)
    {
        using namespace boost::spirit::qi;
        using phx::bind;

        attr = as_string [ +~char_("= trn/>") ] [ _a = _1 ]
                >> '=' >> (
                    as_string [ '"' >> lexeme [ *~char_('"') ] >> '"' ]
                  | as_string [ "'" >> lexeme [ *~char_("'") ] >> "'" ]
                  ) [ bind(handle_attr, _r1, _a, _1) ]
            ;

        elem = lit('<')
            >> as_string [ lexeme [ ~char_("-/>") >> *(char_ - space - char_("/>")) ] ] [ _a = _1 ]
            >> *attr(_a);

        html = (-elem) % +("</" | (char_ - '<'));

        BOOST_SPIRIT_DEBUG_NODE(html);
        BOOST_SPIRIT_DEBUG_NODE(elem);
        BOOST_SPIRIT_DEBUG_NODE(attr);
    }

    qi::rule<It, Skipper> html;
    qi::rule<It, Skipper, qi::locals<std::string> > elem;
    qi::rule<It, qi::unused_type(std::string), Skipper, qi::locals<std::string> > attr;
};

int main(int argc, const char *argv[])
{
    std::string s;

    const static grammar html_;

    while (std::getline(std::cin, s))
    {
        It f = s.begin(),
           l = s.end();

        if (!phrase_parse(f, l, html_, qi::space) || (f!=l))
            std::cerr << "unparsed: " << std::string(f,l) << std::endl;
    }

    return 0;
}