PHP preg_replace to insert string inside an existing string

Question

Unfortunately I really cannot get my head around regular expressions so my last resort is to ask the help of you fine people.

I have this existing code:

<li id="id-21" class="listClass" data-author="newbie">
    <div class="someDiv">
        <span class="spanClass">Some content</span>
    </div>

    <div class="controls faint">
        <a href="link2">Link 2</a>
        <a href="link3">Link 3</a>
    </div>
</li>

Due to a number of reasons, I have to use preg_replace to inject an additional piece of code:

<a href="link1">Link 1</a>

I think you can guess where that should go, but for the sake of clarity, my desire is for the resulting string to look like:

<li id="id-21" class="listClass" data-author="newbie">
    <div class="someDiv">
        <span class="spanClass">Some content</span>
    </div>

    <div class="controls faint">
        <a href="link1">Link 1</a>
        <a href="link2">Link 2</a>
        <a href="link3">Link 3</a>
    </div>
</li>

Can anyone help me with the appropriate regular expression to achieve this?

You'd better more precise. Do you mean you just want to insert <a href="link1">Link 1</a> in front of <a href="link2">Link 2</a> ??? — luiges90
– luiges90, Commented Nov 13, 2012 at 13:18
Don't use regex to parse/manipulate HTML. Get a proper HTML parser. — Alvin Wong
– Alvin Wong, Commented Nov 13, 2012 at 13:18
@Alvin Wong True, Regex cannot parse arbitrary HTML. period. — luiges90
– luiges90, Commented Nov 13, 2012 at 13:19
I'm manipulating HTML templates that are later compiled and parsed in the software that I am using. Don't get too hung up on the HTML side of things. If my example wasn't HTML and was just an arbitrary string, how would I achieve this with regex? — SpongeBobPHPants
– SpongeBobPHPants, Commented Nov 13, 2012 at 13:27

Mohammad Ahmad · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-13 14:10:04Z

2

try this

$html = '<li id="id-21" class="listClass" data-author="newbie">
    <div class="someDiv">
        <span class="spanClass">Some content</span>
    </div>

    <div class="controls faint">
        <a href="link2">Link 2</a> 
        <a href="link3">Link 3</a>
    </div>
</li>';


$eleName = 'a';
$eleAttr = 'href';
$eleAttrValue = 'link2';
$addBefore = '<a href="link1">Link 1</a>';

$result = regexAddBefore($html, $eleName, $eleAttr, $eleAttrValue, $addBefore);

var_dump($result);

function regexAddBefore($subject, $eleName, $eleAttr, $eleAttrValue, $addBefore){
    $regex = "/(<\s*".$eleName."[^>]*".$eleAttr."\s*=\s*(\"|\')?\s*".$eleAttrValue."\s*(\"|\')?[^>]*>)/s";
    $replace = $addBefore."\r\n$1";

    $subject = preg_replace($regex, $replace, $subject);

    return $subject;
}

answered Nov 13, 2012 at 14:10

Mohammad Ahmad

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Comments

bakyaw · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-13 14:02:00Z

0

I can suggest two things (Although I couldn't understand your problem clearly)

$newStr = preg_replace ('/<[^>]*>/', ' ', $htmlText);

this will remove all the html tags from the string. I don't know if it will be usefull for you.

Another recommendation would be to use strip_tags function. The second parameter of strip_tags is optional. You can define the tags you want to keep with the help of 2nd parameter.

$str = '<li id="id-21" class="listClass" data-author="newbie">
        <div class="someDiv">
            <span class="spanClass">Some content</span>
        </div>

        <div class="controls faint">
            <a href="link2">Link 2</a>
            <a href="link3">Link 3</a>
        </div>
        </li>';

echo strip_tags ($str,'<a>');

This will give you an output just with the links and whatever text in the html string.

Sorry if this also doesn't help.

edited Nov 13, 2012 at 14:02

answered Nov 13, 2012 at 13:32

bakyaw

914 bronze badges

2 Comments

SpongeBobPHPants Over a year ago

The software I'm working with doesn't work like that, unfortunately. Your solution would definitely work in normal cases but essentially I'm working to create a plugin and manual template edits aren't workable. The big chunk of code is the raw template code that I can pull out of the database and my only option is to work out some regex to inject the <a href="link1">Link 1</a> code into that. The software later parses it and does whatever it needs to do to make the HTML work. I just need to get that link in there. Thank you so much for taking the time to reply.

bakyaw Over a year ago

ok then see the new answer. Is that what you are searching for? I tried to understand the problem but may be I am not good with it.

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