Data between html tags using regex in php

Insoftservice used Ask the Experts™

on 2012-12-31

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

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Trusted Expert

Most Valuable Expert 2011

Top Expert 2015

Commented: 2012-12-31

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];
}

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Insoftservice

Author

Commented: 2012-12-31

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

Trusted Expert

Most Valuable Expert 2011

Top Expert 2015

Commented: 2012-12-31

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.

Insoftservice

Author

Commented: 2012-12-31

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

Trusted Expert

Most Valuable Expert 2011

Top Expert 2015

Commented: 2012-12-31

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];
}

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Insoftservice

Author

Commented: 2013-01-01

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

Trusted Expert

Most Valuable Expert 2011

Top Expert 2015

Commented: 2013-01-01

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>

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Insoftservice

Author

Commented: 2013-01-03

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.

Bernard SavonetCIO

Verified Expert

Commented: 2013-01-29

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/

Aaron TomoskyDirector of Solutions Consulting

Verified Expert

Commented: 2013-01-30

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

Insoftservice

Author

Commented: 2013-01-30

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

Bernard SavonetCIO

Verified Expert

Commented: 2013-03-04

Hi,

What are the results?

Derek Jensen

Commented: 2013-10-30

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";

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Insoftservice

Author

Commented: 2014-01-28

thx

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Data between html tags using regex in php

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