PHP DOM replace element with a new element

Question

I have a DOM object with loaded HTML markup. I'm trying to replace all embed tags that look like this:

<embed allowfullscreen="true" height="200" src="path/to/video/1.flv" width="320"></embed>

With a tag like this:

<a 
href="path/to/video/1.flv" 
style="display:block;width:320px;height:200px;" 
id="player">
</a>

I'm having troubles figuring this out and I don't want to use regular expression for this. Could you help me out?

EDIT:

This is what I have so far:

         // DOM initialized above, not important
            foreach ($dom->getElementsByTagName('embed') as $e) {
                $path = $e->getAttribute('src');
          $width = $e->getAttribute('width') . 'px';
          $height = $e->getAttribute('height') . 'px';
          $a = $dom->createElement('a', '');
          $a->setAttribute('href', $path);
          $a->setAttribute('style', "display:block;width:$width;height:$height;");
          $a->setAttribute('id', 'player');
          $dom->replaceChild($e, $a); // this line doesn't work
      }

Don't have time to write up an answer right now, but check out php.net/manual/en/class.domdocument.php — Jamie Wong
– Jamie Wong, Commented Jul 7, 2010 at 13:09
I have looked but I cannot figure it out. I have updated my answer with the code I already have but the last line which is supposed to switch elements does not work. — Richard Knop
– Richard Knop, Commented Jul 7, 2010 at 13:20

bobince · Accepted Answer · 2010-07-07 13:26:25Z

53

It's easy to find elements from a DOM using getElementsByTagName. Indeed you wouldn't want to go near regular expressions for this.

If the DOM you are talking about is a PHP DOMDocument, you'd do something like:

$embeds= $document->getElementsByTagName('embed');
foreach ($embeds as $embed) {
    $src= $embed->getAttribute('src');
    $width= $embed->getAttribute('width');
    $height= $embed->getAttribute('height');

    $link= $document->createElement('a');
    $link->setAttribute('class', 'player');
    $link->setAttribute('href', $src);
    $link->setAttribute('style', "display: block; width: {$width}px; height: {$height}px;");

    $embed->parentNode->replaceChild($link, $embed);
}

Edit re edit:

$dom->replaceChild($e, $a); // this line doesn't work

Yeah, replaceChild takes the new element to replace-with as the first argument and the child to-be-replaced as the second. This is not the way round you might expect, but it is consistent with all the other DOM methods. Also it's a method of the parent node of the child to be replaced.

(I used class not id, as you can't have multiple elements on the same page all called id="player".)

edited Jul 7, 2010 at 13:26

answered Jul 7, 2010 at 13:21

bobince

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4 Comments

Luxian Over a year ago

"Also it's a method of the parent node of the child to be replaced." - this ended my 40 minutes of debugging session. Thanks!

neuquen Over a year ago

If you try to replace DOM elements within a foreach loop then elements will be skipped because you are altering a "live" object. Iterating backwards, converting the node list to an array, or using a while loop based on the node list length are a few ways to solve that issue.

Carlos Eduardo Salazar Mori Over a year ago

You saved my day!! I was looking for this in my dreams all the night.

ThW Over a year ago

Since PHP 8 this is possible: $embed->replaceWith($link);

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