php regex - remove empty a tag around string

Question

I have the following string that is part of a larger string which I think I'll need to perform a preg_replace on.

 > <a href=''>About Us</a>

The larger string is:

<a href='http://ecolution.dev'>Home</a>  > <a href=''>About Us</a>  > Meet the Directors

Now I can match the first string easily with something like / .*?<\/a>\s+/ - that works fine.

What I actually need to do is remove the  > <a href=''> from the string and also the </a>. So that plain text is left in the larger string.

I could remove the 2 parts separately in multiple preg_replace calls but that doesn't seem like the best option to me at all.

Is there a way to get any text between  > <a href=''> and </a> and then output it as plain text so that  > <a href=''>About Us</a> simply becomes About Us?

EDIT

I should have mentioned this earlier. This is a dynamically created breadcrumb system inside ExpressionEngine. Some entries have empty href, so <a href=''>abc</a> and those entries need to have their a tags removed, hence why trying to match the characters/strings above so that it's just plain text

<a href='http://ecolution.dev'>Home</a>  > <a href=''>About Us</a>  > Meet the Directors

would become

<a href='http://ecolution.dev'>Home</a>  > About Us  > Meet the Directors

Use htmlspecialchars_decode() to convert those   and then use some HTML parser. Have fun. — HamZa
– HamZa, Commented Mar 11, 2016 at 10:19
Possible duplicate of Preg match text in php between html tags — Egg
– Egg, Commented Mar 11, 2016 at 10:26
@Egg not so sure as this string is populated dynamically. Let me edit to add more info to my question — Andy Holmes
– Andy Holmes, Commented Mar 11, 2016 at 10:31

Egg · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-11 11:25:06Z

2

This will remove the tags for any anchor link with an empty href: <a href=''>text</a>:

$html = "<a href='http://ecolution.dev'>Home</a> &nbsp;>&nbsp;<a href=''>About Us</a> &nbsp;>&nbsp;Meet the Directors";
$result = preg_replace("/<a href=''>(.*?)<\/a>/", "$1", $html);
// Result = "<a href='http://ecolution.dev'>Home</a> &nbsp;>&nbsp;About Us &nbsp;>&nbsp;Meet the Directors"

Using '$1' in the second parameter of preg_replace allows us to put back in the first matched string (from our first parameter of preg_replace).

edited Mar 11, 2016 at 11:25

answered Mar 11, 2016 at 10:44

Egg

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3 Comments

Andy Holmes Over a year ago

So this won't actually remove the a tags, this will just extract the text? I'd need to replace the string that is wrapped in the empty a tag with the string extracted

Egg Over a year ago

I'm confused. You asked "is there a way to get any text and then output it as plain text so that  > <a href=''>About Us</a> simply becomes About Us. With my example, you get that in $match[2], so $html = $match[2] if you want to replace the string with the text.

Andy Holmes Over a year ago

That's probably me badly wording my question, while you are right, I would need to replace it in the strings place, not extract it and use it elsewhere. Let me update the question properly

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