PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser returning div as an array

Question

I'm using PHP and simple HTML DOM Parser to try and grab song lyrics from a website. The song lyrics are held in a div with the class "lyrics". Here's the code I'm using to try and grab the div and display it. Currently it only returns "Array" onto my webpage. When I jsonify the array I can see that the array is empty.

<?php
include('simple_html_dom.php');
$data = file_get_contents("https://example.com/songlyrics");
$html = str_get_html($data);
$lyr = $html->find('div.lyrics');
echo $lyr;
?>

I know that the Simple HTML Dom Parser is being included correctly, and I have no problem displaying the full webpage when I echo $html with some small changes to the code, however I can't seem to echo just this div. Is there something wrong with my code? Why is $lyr returning an array?

most likely its a collection of classes, point to the first element, ->find('div.lyrics, 0'), mind the second argument, then echo — Kevin
– Kevin, Commented Apr 17, 2017 at 22:30

ad_on_is · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-18 09:52:51Z

1

There's nothing wrong with your code.

Why is $lyr returning an array?

It's because a class is considered to be used multiple times. If you var_dump($lyr) instead, you should see all the div-elements found with that class name.

You can either echo $lyr[0] or you can $html->find('div.lyrics',0) to select a specific div element.

edited Apr 18, 2017 at 9:52

answered Apr 17, 2017 at 22:38

ad_on_is

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3 Comments

Damien Stewart Over a year ago

var_dump will be useful in the future. I'm not too familiar with PHP so that would have saved me a bit of time. The comment Ghost left already solved my problem but since this is an answer I'll mark it as correct.

pguardiario Over a year ago

That's not quite it. find always returns an array unless you use the second argument. It's a confusing thing you have to get used to. Also, don't use var_dump, you'll see why not if you try it.

Damien Stewart Over a year ago

@pguardiario Thanks for the info. I do see why not to use var_dump now lol.

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