asked on

many rows of html text, want a value from each line

text here<a href="/start.php?a=request-link&s=new-york&f=intake&l=want-this-number"><img src="/images/start.gif" alt="Start"></a>more text here
text here<a href="/start.php?a=request-link&s=new-york&f=intake&l=want-this-number"><img src="/images/start.gif" alt="Start"></a>more text here
text here<a href="/start.php?a=request-link&s=new-york&f=intake&l=want-this-number"><img src="/images/start.gif" alt="Start"></a>more text here
text here<a href="/start.php?a=request-link&s=new-york&f=intake&l=want-this-number"><img src="/images/start.gif" alt="Start"></a>more text here
text here<a href="/start.php?a=request-link&s=new-york&f=intake&l=want-this-number"><img src="/images/start.gif" alt="Start"></a>more text here

many lines
please tell me how to get
want-this-number

Terry Woods

For the exact text provided, this should work:

preg_match_all('#(?<=<a href="/start\.php\?a=request-link&amp;s=new-york&amp;f=intake&amp;l=)\d+#',$text,$matches);
print_r($matches);

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Terry Woods

You could also be more flexible in the URLs you accept, such as:

preg_match_all('#<a href="/start\.php[^"]*(?:\?|&amp;)l=(\d+)#',$text,$matches);
print_r($matches[1]);

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ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Ray Paseur

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rgb192

ASKER

Terry's code
Array ( ) Array ( [0] => Array ( ) )

<?php

$text = <<<EOD
text here<a href="/start.php?a=request-link&amp;s=new-york&amp;f=intake&amp;l=want-this-number"><img src="/images/start.gif" alt="Start"></a>more text here
text here<a href="/start.php?a=request-link&amp;s=new-york&amp;f=intake&amp;l=want-this-number"><img src="/images/start.gif" alt="Start"></a>more text here
text here<a href="/start.php?a=request-link&amp;s=new-york&amp;f=intake&amp;l=want-this-number"><img src="/images/start.gif" alt="Start"></a>more text here
text here<a href="/start.php?a=request-link&amp;s=new-york&amp;f=intake&amp;l=want-this-number"><img src="/images/start.gif" alt="Start"></a>more text here
text here<a href="/start.php?a=request-link&amp;s=new-york&amp;f=intake&amp;l=want-this-number"><img src="/images/start.gif" alt="Start"></a>more text here
EOD;
  preg_match_all('#<a href="/start\.php[^"]*(?:\?|&amp;)l=(\d+)#',$text,$matches);
print_r($matches[1]);


preg_match_all('#(?<=<a href="/start\.php\?a=request-link&amp;s=new-york&amp;f=intake&amp;l=)\d+#',$text,$matches);
print_r($matches);

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rgb192

ASKER

Ray has the correct answer, not sure if Terry has correct answer

I opened another question asking why Ray's code works
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/28161784/first-part-of-parsing-many-lines.html

rgb192

ASKER

did I implement Terry's code correctly?

rgb192

ASKER

Ray had the only answer that I knew how to use.

Thanks