Find and replace string in HTML using PHP DOM Parser

Question

How do you find and replace a string in html page using the native PHP DOM Parser?

Example string to find: "the <a href='site.com'>company</a> has been growing for the past 5 months";

The parent is a full HTML page for example and the immediate predecessor of that string can be a <div> or <p> for example..

There is no id or class to that element. Is it still possible to find and manipulate it ?

There is nothing to identify the string or its immediate predecessor. Only the exact string, i.e. sequence of characters that the $search_string consists of.

Thanks!

EDIT:

$string_to_replace = "the <a href='site.com'>company</a> has been growing for the past 5 months";

$replacement_string = "<span class='someClass'>the <a href='site.com'>company</a> has been growing for the past 5 months";</span>

In the example above, you do not search for the contents of a DOM element, but rather a text string. If you want to modify <a href ... </a> you could use PHP DOM, but not to search for "the <a href='site.com'>company</a> has been growing for the past 5 months". Use a string search/replace for that or a regexp search/replace — Hasse Björk
– Hasse Björk, Commented Nov 12, 2015 at 22:31
Please see the EDIT. Thanks for clarifying. I've been trying to use str_replace() with little success. Also, people say you should not parse html with regex(which is needed for some replacements). Can you please have a look at this question I posted: stackoverflow.com/questions/33671497/… — user3857924
– user3857924, Commented Nov 12, 2015 at 22:36

Hasse Björk · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-12 23:21:40Z

1

Since this seems to span part of a node with child nodes, I would use a replace like this:

// Text in $html
$find  = "the <a href='site.com'>company</a> has been growing for the past 5 months";
$find_len = strlen( $find );
$start = strpos( $html, $find );
if ( $start !== false ) {
    $html = substr( $html, 0, $start )
        . '<span class="someClass">' . $find . '</span>'
        . substr( $html, $start + $find_len );
}

I do not have time to test it properly, but it might point you in the right direction.

PHP DOM would be excellent to change the href attribute of element a or it's contents (company). It should also work if $find is the full contents of a <div>-element

edited Nov 12, 2015 at 23:21

answered Nov 12, 2015 at 23:15

Hasse Björk

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