Solved

Data between html tags using regex in php

Posted on 2012-12-31

4 solutions

787 Views

Last Modified: 2014-01-28

I wanted to extract info between html tags .
for eg
<div>
	 <br>
		 love to marry is an free matrimonial website
	 </br>
	 <div id='first'>
		 Search for your partner ends here.
	 </div>
	 <div class="test">
		 love to marry will let you know what kanyadaan means
		</div>
<span>
Provide your ads on our website at very cheap rate
</span>
	<div id="second">
	 Mangal sutra bandhan is an hindu ritual where groom .. to read more please visit http://lovetomarry.com/ritual
<table>
<tr>
		<td>mangal sutra bandhan information</td>
		<td>Find your partner for free </td>
</tr>
<tr>
		<td>send your love sms at http://lovetomarry.com and win exciting prizes </td>
		<td>Get your horoscope built from love to marry , to know more about your future your future enroll our website </td>
</tr>
</table>
	 <div>
	 Watch latest online movies for free
	 </div>
	
	 Get your daily, weekly, monthly,yearly	Horoscope for free only on lovetomarry.com

	</div>

</div>

########### o/p ##############

if request is for "BR" tags

love to marry is an free matrimonial website

if request is for "DIV" tags w.r.t id "first"
Search for your partner ends here.

if request is for "DIV" tags w.r.t class "test"
love to marry will let you know what kanyadaan means.

if request is for "SPAN"

Provide your ads on our website at very cheap rate

if request is for "DIV" tags w.r.t id "Second"

	 Mangal sutra bandhan is an hindu ritual where groom .. to read more please visit http://lovetomarry.com/ritual

	 mangal sutra bandhan information

	 Find your partner for free

	 send your love sms at http://lovetomarry.com and win exciting prizes

	 Get your horoscope built from love to marry , to know more about your future your future enroll our website
	
	 Watch latest online movies for free

	 Get your daily, weekly, monthly,yearly	Horoscope for free only on lovetomarry.com

###################o/p################################	

If request is for "DIV" tags w.r.t id "Second"
over here i want to exclude table but if it contains some other html tags then i have to maintain the text with there respective tags.

extraction of data within the html tags may be with "id","class" or without there attributes.
i have extracted data between tags w.r.t id but it fails if it has some other div in between

Comment

Question by:Insoftservice

[X]

Welcome to Experts Exchange

Add your voice to the tech community where 5M+ people just like you are talking about what matters.

Help others & share knowledge
Earn cash & points
Learn & ask questions

Join The Community

15 Comments

LVL 75

Expert Comment

by:käµfm³d 👽

ID: 387329992012-12-31

You should really be using an HTML parser for something like this. However, since you asked about regex, you can try:

$tag = 'br';
$attr = '';

// OR

$tag = 'div';
$attr = 'class="test"';

// ******************* //

$tag = preg_quote($tag);
$attr = preg_quote($attr);

if (preg_match("/<$tag(?: +[^>]*$attr[^>]*)?>((?:<|[^<](?!/$tag))+)</$tag>/", $html, $matches) {
    echo $matches[1];
}

Open in new window

LVL 15

Author Comment

by:Insoftservice

ID: 387330132012-12-31

thx for info HTML parser can also be used.
as you have mention does it will provide right info for id second as it contains div inside div.
Even i am trying for html parser for this issue

Tried but have got this issue.

syntax error, unexpected '^', expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING

LVL 75

Expert Comment

by:käµfm³d 👽

ID: 387330282012-12-31

Give me a little while to test. I'm not currently near a machine with PHP installed, but I'll have one shortly. I'll post back with a correction.

LVL 15

Author Comment

by:Insoftservice

ID: 387330452012-12-31

not an issue. take your own time .

Enjoy your new year that's more important.

Happy new year to you & your family and to all EE family

LVL 75

Expert Comment

by:käµfm³d 👽

ID: 387333272012-12-31

OK, let's try it like this:

$tag = 'br';
$attr = '';

// OR

//$tag = 'div';
//$attr = 'class="test"';

// ******************* //

$tag = preg_quote($tag);
$attr = preg_quote($attr);

$pattern = "/<" . $tag . "(?: +[^>]*" . $attr . "[^>]*)?>((?:<|[^<](?!\/" . $tag . ">))+)<\/" . $tag . ">/";

if (preg_match($pattern, $html, $matches)) {
    echo $matches[1];
}

Open in new window

LVL 15

Author Comment

by:Insoftservice

ID: 387343542013-01-01

not working dude. its showing blank . html parser not working its showing &nbsp entity.

LVL 75

Assisted Solution

by:käµfm³d 👽

käµfm³d 👽 earned 50 total points

ID: 387346112013-01-01

Hmmm... These are the results I get:

<html>
  <head>
  </head>
  <body>

<?php

$html = <<<HTML
<div>
         <br>
              love to marry is an free matrimonial website
         </br>
        <div id='first'>
              Search for your partner ends here.
        </div>
        <div  class="test">
               love to marry will let you know what kanyadaan means
            </div>
       <span>
           Provide your ads on our website at very cheap rate
      </span>
      <div id="second">
        Mangal sutra bandhan is an hindu ritual where groom .. to read more please visit http://lovetomarry.com/ritual
      <table>
      <tr>
            <td>mangal sutra bandhan information</td>
            <td>Find your partner for free </td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
            <td>send your love sms at http://lovetomarry.com and win exciting prizes  </td>
            <td>Get your horoscope built from love to marry , to know more about your future your future enroll our website </td>
      </tr>
      </table>
        <div>
            Watch latest online movies for free 
        </div>
      
       Get your daily, weekly, monthly,yearly      Horoscope for free only on lovetomarry.com 

      </div> 

</div>
HTML;

$tag = 'br';
$attr = '';

// ******************* //

$tag = preg_quote($tag);
$attr = preg_quote($attr);

$pattern = "/<" . $tag . "(?: +[^>]*" . $attr . "[^>]*)?>((?:<|[^<](?!\/" . $tag . ">))+)<\/" . $tag . ">/";

if (preg_match($pattern, $html, $matches)) {
    echo "***********  &lt;br&gt;  ***********<br />";
    echo $matches[1];
    echo "<br /><br />";
}


$tag = 'div';
$attr = 'class="test"';

// ******************* //

$tag = preg_quote($tag);
$attr = preg_quote($attr);

$pattern = "/<" . $tag . "(?: +[^>]*" . $attr . "[^>]*)?>((?:<|[^<](?!\/" . $tag . ">))+)<\/" . $tag . ">/";

if (preg_match($pattern, $html, $matches)) {
    echo "***********  &lt;div class=\"test\"&gt;  ***********<br />";
    echo $matches[1];
}

?>

  </body>
</html>

Open in new window

LVL 15

Author Comment

by:Insoftservice

ID: 387428582013-01-03

Html has other tags too i have just provided the example of the div.But it could contain   <br> and other html tags too.like <p>@ and so on.

When tried with the code provided it gave me blank result , but when tried with html parser as you suggested it gave me   entity error.

LVL 29

Assisted Solution

by:fibo

fibo earned 150 total points

ID: 388341882013-01-29

May I suggest that you have a look at "jQuery-php", a php library heavily inspired by jQuery and which allows an easy parsing of DOM files.

You would then use already tested functions...

see http://jquery.hohli.com/

LVL 39

Accepted Solution

by:Aaron Tomosky

Aaron Tomosky earned 150 total points

ID: 388356902013-01-30

I used this once, it worked great and is really easy
http://simplehtmldom.sourceforge.net/

LVL 15

Author Comment

by:Insoftservice

ID: 388361422013-01-30

thx @fibo & @aarontomosky i will surely try this .

LVL 29

Expert Comment

by:fibo

ID: 389489542013-03-04

Hi,

What are the results?

LVL 9

Assisted Solution

by:Derek Jensen

Derek Jensen earned 150 total points

ID: 396126152013-10-30

Well, I can't seem to get any closer than this...

Working off kaufmed's code, should look something like this (assuming all LF's & CR's have been stripped out first):

$pattern = "/<" . $tag . "(>|.+?(?<!<|>)>).+?(?<!<" . $tag . ")(.+?)<\/" . $tag . ">/i";

Open in new window

LVL 15

Author Closing Comment

by:Insoftservice

ID: 398147122014-01-28

thx

Featured Post

Question has a verified solution.

If you are experiencing a similar issue, please ask a related question

Making CAPTCHA Friendlier with Simple Number Tests or PHP Image Manipulation

Article by: Ray

Things That Drive Us Nuts Have you noticed the use of the reCaptcha feature at EE and other web sites? It wants you to read and retype something that looks like this. Insanity! It's not EE's fault - that's just the way reCaptcha works. But it i…

3 working tips to increase Magento speed

Article by: Konstantin

3 proven steps to speed up Magento powered sites. The article focus is on optimizing time to first byte (TTFB), full page caching and configuring server for optimal performance.

Validation of Email Addresses with Regular Expressions

Video by: Terry

Explain concepts important to validation of email addresses with regular expressions. Applies to most languages/tools that uses regular expressions. Consider email address RFCs: Look at HTML5 form input element (with type=email) regex pattern: T…

Introduction to PHP: Building the Form

Video by: Jason

The viewer will learn how to create a basic form using some HTML5 and PHP for later processing. Set up your basic HTML file. Open your form tag and set the method and action attributes.: (CODE) Set up your first few inputs one for the name and …