Converting HTML string to PHP array

Question

Assuming an HTML string like this:

$str = '<p>Hello World!</p><p style="text-align:center"><img src="foo.png" /><br /></p>';

It is possible to convert it into an array like this?

[0] => '<p>Hello World!</p>'
[1] => '<p style="text-align:center">'
[2] => '<img src="foo.png" />'
[3] => '<br />'
[4] => '</p>'

I tried using DOMDocument many different ways but the problem seems to always boil down to parenting. I need to traverse the HTML without regard for parent/child relationships.

hi again greener, is str formatted like that, you copy pasted ? — Pedro Lobito
– Pedro Lobito, Commented May 12, 2016 at 1:38
@chris85 so,I don't see the point of pasting it like that... — Pedro Lobito
– Pedro Lobito, Commented May 12, 2016 at 1:44

Severino Lorilla Jr. · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-12 02:04:20Z

1

@olibiaz' Answer will do..

Just wanted to show another way of doing this using preg_split.

$str = '<p>Hello World!</p><p style="text-align:center"><img src="foo.png" /><br /></p>';
$flags = PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE | PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY;
$regex = '/(<[a-z0-9=\-:." ^\/]+\/>)|(<[^\/]+>[^<\/]+<\/[a-z0-9]+>)|(<[a-z0-9=\-:." ^\/]+>)/';
$parts = preg_split( $regex, $str, -1, $flags);

OUTPUT:

array (size=5)
    0 => string '<p>Hello World!</p>' (length=19)
    1 => string '<p style="text-align:center">' (length=29)
    2 => string '<img src="foo.png" />' (length=21)
    3 => string '<br />' (length=6)
    4 => string '</p>' (length=4)

answered May 12, 2016 at 2:04

Severino Lorilla Jr.

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Comments

Technidev · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-12 01:16:32Z

1

Do you want to use a PHP DOM extension for this? Alternatively, you could simple explode on newlines as follows:

var_dump(explode("\n", $html));

Which results in:

Array
(
    [0] => <p>Hello World!</p>
    [1] => <p style="text-align:center">
    [2] =>   <img src="foo.png" />
    [3] =>   <br />
    [4] => </p>
)

answered May 12, 2016 at 1:16

Technidev

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3 Comments

greener Over a year ago

the HTML string actually has no line breaks :/

Technidev Over a year ago

@greener the string in your opening post looks like it has newlines though, is that literally what the string looks like?

greener Over a year ago

no the string is one single line. I just posted it like that for clarity but evidently could have been better

olibiaz · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-12 01:58:49Z

You can use regex in order to achieve that.

$input = '<p>Hello World!</p><p style="text-align:center"><img src="foo.png" /><br /></p>';
$regex = '/(<[a-z0-9=\-:." ^\/]+\/>)|(<[^\/]+>[^<\/]+<\/[a-z0-9]+>)|(<[a-z0-9=\-:." ^\/]+>)/';


$result = []; 
preg_match_all($regex, $input, $result);

$result = $result[0];

$result will look like

array(5) {
  [0] =>
  string(19) "<p>Hello World!</p>"
  [1] =>
  string(29) "<p style="text-align:center">"
  [2] =>
  string(21) "<img src="foo.png" />"
  [3] =>
  string(6) "<br />"
  [4] =>
  string(4) "</p>"
}

But two important thing:

For sure this regex pattern can be improved, its more like an example.
Test it on different cases since i made a test on your particular example input and it could failed on more complex structure. In this case adapt it to your needs.

Pedro Lobito · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-12 15:54:36Z

0

No regex solution:

$str = '<p>Hello World!</p><p style="text-align:center"><img src="foo.png" /><br /></p>';
$tags = explode( '|', str_replace('><', '>|<', $str));
print_r($tags);

Output:

Array
(
    [0] => <p>Hello World!</p>
    [1] => <p style="text-align:center">
    [2] => <img src="foo.png" />
    [3] => <br />
    [4] => </p>
)

Ideone Demo

answered May 12, 2016 at 15:54

Pedro Lobito

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