PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser remove characters / str_replace

Question

Currently working with PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser and come across a very strange scenario.

I have a set of urls which i am crawling and using the following to get the info i need:

foreach($urls as $url) {
    $html = file_get_html($url);
    foreach($html->find('.product4block') as $article) {
    $item['title']     = $article->find('.product4text', 0)->plaintext;
    $item['link']    = $article->find('.product4text a', 0)->href;
    $item['price'] = $article->find('.product_price', 0)->plaintext;
    $data[] = $item;
  } 
}

I then get a result like the following, which is what i need:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [title] => title 0
            [link] => link 0
            [price] => £26.99 
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [title] => title 1
            [link] => link 1
            [price] => £27.99 
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [title] => title 2
            [link] => link 2
            [price] => £30.99 
        )
)

I then loop through the data adding it to my database.

foreach($data as $result){  
  //insert data here//
}

I then need to remove the £ symbol from the price. Which i am simply doing a str_replace like this:

$price = str_replace('£', '', $result['price']);

For some strange reason the £ is not getting removed. Im not sure if its the dom parser causing issues, or if str_replace just isn't working for some reason.

Any reason why this wouldn't work?

Odd, did a quick check and your str_replace seems to be working for me, just as a check could you try altering the str_replace to remove another character in the price string. if that removes it then the issue is that the two £ characters aren't the same for some reason, whether that's due to some form of character encoding I'm not 100% sure. — Mikey
– Mikey, Commented Mar 2, 2016 at 10:31

Jens A. Koch · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-02 10:37:52Z

1

Well, the str_replace() works, see http://ideone.com/C5O2LW

Alternatives:

Use NumberFormatter::parseCurrency http://php.net/manual/de/numberformatter.parsecurrency.php
$output = (float) substr($input, strpos($input, "£") + 1);
$output = floatval(ltrim($input,"£"));
you don't need preg_* functions for this

answered Mar 2, 2016 at 10:37

Jens A. Koch

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Santosh Ram Kunjir · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-02 10:36:18Z

foreach($urls as $url) {
    $html = file_get_html($url);
    foreach($html->find('.product4block') as $article) {
    $item['title']     = $article->find('.product4text', 0)->plaintext;
    $item['link']    = $article->find('.product4text a', 0)->href;
    $item['price'] = $article->find('.product_price', 0)->plaintext;
    $data[] = $item;
  } 
}

replace with this it will work

foreach($urls as $url) {
    $html = file_get_html($url);
    foreach($html->find('.product4block') as $article) {
    $item['title']     = $article->find('.product4text', 0)->plaintext;
    $item['link']    = $article->find('.product4text a', 0)->href;
    $item['price'] =  trim(str_replace('£', '',$article->find('.product_price', 0)->plaintext));
    $data[] = $item;
  } 
}

no need to loop again.

Xenofexs · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-02 10:37:44Z

0

There are many way for that. First, you can read the Multibyte String Functions

After, you can, for example, use the preg_replace functions with UTF-8 option.

At last, you can also use the ASCII number of the character.

First example :

$tab['price'] = '£26.99';
$tab['price'] = preg_replace('#£#u', '', $tab['price']);

result :

 Array
(
    [price] => 26.99
)

note the "u" just after the regular expression.

2nd example :

echo ord('£'); // show 194
$price=str_replace(chr(194),'',$price);
echo $price; // show 26.99

answered Mar 2, 2016 at 10:37

Xenofexs

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