PHP search for strings over multiple HTML lines

Question

I'm using the PHP code below to access an external HTML file, once accessed there is a foreach loop that searches through the HTML to find a specific string that exists between two other strings.

This search works fine when the two search strings ($start_limiter and $end_limiter) are on the same line in the HTML file. However when they are on separate lines it does not work.

I need to be able to get the string between two search strings regardless of what line they're on.

<?php

function findText($start_limiter,$end_limiter,$url)
{
   $start_pos = strpos($url,$start_limiter);
   if ($start_pos === FALSE)
   {
       return FALSE;
   }

   $end_pos = strpos($url,$end_limiter,$start_pos);

   if ($end_pos === FALSE)
   {
      return FALSE;
   }

   return substr($url, $start_pos+1, ($end_pos-1)-$start_pos);
}  


$url = file("testResults.html");

$start_limiter = "firstString";
$end_limiter = "lastString";



foreach ($url as $number => $line)
{
    $res = findText($start_limiter, $end_limiter,trim($line));



    if ($res != FALSE)
    {

        $str2 = substr($res, 9);


    echo $str2;
        ?><br /><?php

}


}

Use file_get_contents and offset parameter in strpos

u_mulder
– u_mulder

2014-09-28 09:12:15 +00:00
Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 9:12 — u_mulder
– u_mulder, Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 9:12

bwoebi · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-28 09:17:16Z

1

In that case it would be better to analyze the whole string instead of working on partial data (line by line).

Just use file_get_contents(), instead of file() (reads line by line into an array), which reads the whole page into a single string and remove the then superfluous foreach loop.

edited Sep 28, 2014 at 9:17

answered Sep 28, 2014 at 9:12

bwoebi

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2 Comments

user2949513 Over a year ago

Thanks for your answer. Could you give me a hint or example of how the syntax might look? I've been hunting for a solution for this but haven't had any luck in figuring it out. For example, how would I iterate through the string generated by file_get_contents() in order to get the string content contained between the search tags? (firstString content I want lastString). Note that firstString and lastString will appear many times in the HTML file and I need to compile each separate result into a list... Hence the foreach loop I'm currently using.

bwoebi Over a year ago

e.g.

$offset = 0; while (false !== $text = findText($startLimiter, $endLimiter, $file, $offset) { /* do something with $text */ }

where $file is the return of file_get_contents and $offset a reference inside the findText() function which you always set to where the last $end_limiter ended (e.g. $offset = $end_pos + strlen($end_limiter);). Then you can use $offset as third argument on the first strpos() call.

Prashant Tapase · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-28 11:00:23Z

0

Instead of file() function you can use file_get_content()

file_get_contents — Reads entire file into a string

file — Reads entire file into an array

<?php
$url = file_get_contents("testResults.html");

function findText($start_limiter,$end_limiter,$url)
{
   $start_pos = strpos($url,$start_limiter);
   if ($start_pos === FALSE)
   {
       return FALSE;
   }

   $end_pos = strpos($url,$end_limiter,$start_pos);

   if ($end_pos === FALSE)
   {
      return FALSE;
   }

   return substr($url, $start_pos+1, ($end_pos-1)-$start_pos);
}  

$start_limiter = "firstString";
$end_limiter = "lastString";
$res = findText($start_limiter, $end_limiter,trim($line));

edited Sep 28, 2014 at 11:00

answered Sep 28, 2014 at 9:14

Prashant Tapase

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