Get specific html portion with regex string matching in php

Question

i am trying to get specific HTML code portion with regex preg_match_all by matching it with class tag But it is returning empty array.

This is the html portion which i want to get from complete HTML

<div class="details">
    <div class="title">
        <a href="citation.cfm?id=2892225&CFID=598850954&CFTOKEN=15595705"   
        target="_self">Restrictification of function arguments</a>  
    </div>
</div>

Where I am using this regex

preg_match_all('~<div class=\'details\'>\s*(<div.*?</div>\s*)?(.*?)</div>~is', $html, $matches );

NOTE: $html variable is having the whole html from which I want to search.

Thanks.

Maybe it's because you used the wrong quotes at \'details\' (-> \"details\" or ["']details["']) — enzian
– enzian, Commented Apr 9, 2016 at 19:04
using regex for the first time, i assume it should give the content inside the <div>. I don't know exactly how it will return the output. — danish.ahmad
– danish.ahmad, Commented Apr 9, 2016 at 19:13

Martin Hieden · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-09 19:01:25Z

1

You are looking for single quotes in your regex in contrast to the double quotes in $html.

Your regex should look like:

'~<div class="details">\s*(<div.*?</div>\s*)?(.*?)</div>~is'

or better:

'~<div class=[\'"]details[\'"]>\s*(<div.*?</div>\s*)?(.*?)</div>~is'

answered Apr 9, 2016 at 19:01

Martin Hieden

966 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

5 Comments

danish.ahmad Over a year ago

thanks for the answer. i am still getting empty array. I used as you told: preg_match_all('~<div class=[\'"]details[\'"]>\s*(<div.*?</div>\s*)?(.*?)</div>~is', $html, $matches ); Am i doing something wrong?

Martin Hieden Over a year ago

I tried the test case you've shown and $matches isn't empty over here.

danish.ahmad Over a year ago

can you please please post full code you're trying? (or i could share mine)

Martin Hieden Over a year ago

Please update your question to show more code, as I'm not doing anything different than you're doing (as shown by now).

danish.ahmad Over a year ago

Your code is working. I was using html_entities function which was removing tags (yes i am terrible at this). Thank you very much

Jan · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-09 19:04:59Z

1

Better use a DOM approach !

<?php
$html = '<div class="details">
    <div class="title">
        <a href="citation.cfm?id=2892225&CFID=598850954&CFTOKEN=15595705"   
        target="_self">Restrictification of function arguments</a>  
    </div>
</div>';

$doc = new DOMDocument();
$doc->loadHTML($html);

$xpath = new DOMXpath($doc);
$divs = $xpath->query('//div[@class="title"]');
print_r($divs);
?>

answered Apr 9, 2016 at 19:04

Jan

43.3k11 gold badges57 silver badges87 bronze badges

4 Comments

Martin Hieden Over a year ago

Which is definitely the better approach than doing the regex.

Casimir et Hippolyte Over a year ago

Not sure that printing a DOMNodeList object will give the attempted result.

danish.ahmad Over a year ago

thanks but its for my class work, i have to use it with regex

Jan Over a year ago

@CasimiretHippolyte: It will certainly not, just to make sure any element has been found.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Get specific html portion with regex string matching in php

2 Answers 2

5 Comments

4 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

5 Comments

4 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related