Parsing data from string in PHP

Question

I would like to be able to parse the following data using PHP:

$string = "<![CDATA[<div><b>Color:</b> Blue</div>
<div><b>Number:</b> 5</div>
<div><b>Month:</b> January</div>]]>";

Into an array such as:

Array
(
    [Color] = Blue
    [Number] = 5
    [Month] = January
)

I attempted to use preg_match to extract the data between , however, it would not produce any matches.

preg_match_all("/\[CDATA\[(.*?)\]]/", $string, $result);

I can't get past this point. Any help would be appreciated.

Two things, why the (.*?) has a ?. and why haven't you escaped ] in \]]? — hjpotter92
– hjpotter92, Commented Apr 12, 2012 at 22:20

Artjom Kurapov · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-12 22:30:07Z

1

$result=array();
$arr = explode("\n", strip_tags(substr($string,9, strlen($string)-12)));
foreach($arr as $val){
    $tmp = explode(':',$val);
    $result[$tmp[0]] = $tmp[1];
}

(Add checks, trims, code style and so on yourself)

answered Apr 12, 2012 at 22:30

Artjom Kurapov

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2 Comments

Spudley Over a year ago

You'd probably want to remove the <![CDATA[ prior to running strip_tags() but other than that this would seem to be a good answer.

Artjom Kurapov Over a year ago

@Spudley thats why there is substr()

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