How to delete XML element with specific contents using PHP regexp?

Question

I need to delete the offer element with city Moscow in the following XML:

<offer id="14305" available="true">
<param name="City">Moscow</param>
</offer>
<offer id="14306" available="true">
<param name="City">LA</param>
</offer>

How can I do it with PHP regular expressions?

I tried:

preg_replace('/<offer[^(>Moscow<).]+?<\/offer>/s', ''. $string);

but without success.

I read your advices. It is really great. But I have a new problem with greedy:

<offer id="14305" available="true">
<param name="Color">Red</param>
<engine>XYZ</engine>
<param name="City">Moscow</param>
</offer>
<offer id="14306" available="true">
<param name="Color">Red</param>
<param name="City">LA</param>
</offer>
<offer id="14306" available="true">
<weight>1000</weight>
<param name="Color">Red</param>
<param name="City">LA</param>
</offer>

My regexp is too greedy :(

<offer.*?>\s*?<param.*?>\s*?Moscow\s*?<\/param>\s*?<\/offer>

Why not use php's xml functions to strip out the element, preg_replace is a lot more error-prone. — Hikariii
– Hikariii, Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 12:48

Kaspar Lee · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-23 15:41:17Z

2

Use this RegEx:

<offer.*?>\s*?<param.*?>\s*?Moscow\s*?<\/param>\s*?<\/offer>

Live Demo on Regexr

How it works:

<offer.*?>    # Select opening <offer> with optional parameters
\s*?          # Optional Whitespace
<param.*?>    # Select opening <param> with options parameters
\s*?          # Optional Whitespace
Moscow        # Select Moscow text
\s*?          # Optional Whitespace
<\/param>     # Select closing </param>
\s*?          # Optional Whitespace
<\/offer>     # Select closing </offer>

edited Mar 23, 2016 at 15:41

answered Mar 23, 2016 at 12:48

Kaspar Lee

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6 Comments

dotancohen Over a year ago

What about new lines and indentation?

klaar Over a year ago

@dotancohen You can just put \s* between each element to match any whitespace, no biggie.

Kaspar Lee Over a year ago

@dotancohen I have updated it to work with newlines and indentation / whitespace, using \n?\s*? That should work, yes?

klaar Over a year ago

@Druzion: \s already matches newlines, so it's not necessary to put \n next to \s. You can just put \s* between your XML-elements and that will be enough. Your current solution won't match if there is trailing whitespace before the newline.

Kaspar Lee Over a year ago

@klaar I suspected so, thanks! I'll update the answer

|

Ashkan Mobayen Khiabani · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-23 12:50:34Z

0

<offer[^>]*>[^<]*<param[^>]*>Moscow<\/param>[^<]*<\/offer>

DEMO

answered Mar 23, 2016 at 12:50

Ashkan Mobayen Khiabani

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3 Comments

klaar Over a year ago

This won't work if the offer-XML-elements contain anything other than suspected in this pattern.

Ashkan Mobayen Khiabani Over a year ago

@klaar I didn't get what you mean

klaar Over a year ago

It will only match offer items that also and only contain param children items, but no other offer items that might contain other things. As Sebastiaan de Rooij said in a comment, it's better to let this be handled by a proper XML-parser instead of using regexp.

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