php - get string between two HTML elements

Question

I have the following function:

function get_string_between($string, $start, $end){
    $string = " ".$string;
    $ini = strpos($string,$start);
    if ($ini == 0) return "";
    $ini += strlen($start);
    $len = strpos($string,$end,$ini) - $ini;
    return substr($string,$ini,$len);
}

I passing in the following information over to this function:

$result = scraped HTML page;
$name = get_string_between($result, '<div class="model ww"> ',' </div>');
$name= strtok($name, "\n");

I expect the following results:

$name = 'XM1014 | Bone Machine (Well-Worn)';

The whole section is as follows:

<div class="modal ww"> XM1014 | Bone Machine (Well-Worn) </div>

You really shouldn't parse HTML like this. Use a PHP DOM parser instead. — Jay Blanchard
– Jay Blanchard, Commented Aug 13, 2015 at 19:12
I'm scraping a page protected by cloudflare. Python script to bypass this which return the page content to php. Correct me if I'm wrong however I don't believe I can use a PHP DOM parser in this case. — Ricky Barnett
– Ricky Barnett, Commented Aug 13, 2015 at 19:16
You're scraping a page and getting the DOM, you should use a DOM parser. — Jay Blanchard
– Jay Blanchard, Commented Aug 13, 2015 at 19:17

Troubleshooter · Accepted Answer · 2015-08-13 20:05:37Z

1

Try following code

    function get_string_between($string, $start, $end){
        $ar=array();
        $ar=explode($start,$string);
        $ar1=explode($end,$ar[0]);
        return implode("",$ar1);        
    }   
   $result = "<div class='modal ww'> XM1014 | Bone Machine (Well-Worn) </div>";
   $text_result=get_string_between($result, '<div class="model ww"> ',' </div>');
   print_r($text_result);

parse html with simple html dom. here is short example

 $html = new simple_html_dom();

// Load HTML from a string
$html->load('<html><body>
<div>test1</div>
<div>test2</div>
</body></html>');

foreach($html->find('div') as $element)
       print_r($element->plaintext);

for working above code you need to include this file So you can get content between all div. You can read more here

Finally your function will be

function get_string_between($string){
        $result=array();
        $html = new simple_html_dom();
        $html->load($string);

        foreach($html->find('div') as $element)
            array_push($result,$element->plaintext);    

        return $result;
 }   
       $result = "<div class='modal ww'> XM1014 | Bone Machine (Well-Worn) </div>";
       $text_result=get_string_between($result);
       print_r($text_result);

Hope it helps :)

edited Aug 13, 2015 at 20:05

answered Aug 13, 2015 at 19:22

Troubleshooter

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7 Comments

Ricky Barnett Over a year ago

This works when: $result = "<div class='modal ww'> XM1014 | Bone Machine (Well-Worn) </div>"; However $result contains a whole html page, which doesn't seem to be working.

Troubleshooter Over a year ago

which are other possibilities requirements ? please tell me so that i can update code

Ricky Barnett Over a year ago

$name returns the whole page when passed through your function. There are no other requirements, the string I'm looking for will always lie between <div class="modal ww"> </div> on the page.

Troubleshooter Over a year ago

Thanks I have checked that I have updated the answer now you can get content between <div>.

Ricky Barnett Over a year ago

Possible to amend the first section to function correctly?

|

Eugene Sue · Accepted Answer · 2015-08-13 19:44:02Z

0

You can of course use a regexp, but there are libraries which will do the job quicker and easier. Try using a HTML dom parser, or phquery which is an implementation of jquery lib in php. It's also available for Composer. So if you're familiar with jquery syntax, you can find it very neat.

Get the html you need using this: $html = pq('.modal.ww')->html();

answered Aug 13, 2015 at 19:44

Eugene Sue

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