PHP: regex match phrase not containing specific word

Question

I'm getting tired of looking around for a close enough example, time for some quick help! Here is my code:

preg_match_all( '#<li.*?>.*?</li>#s', $card_html, $activity );

I want to modify it so that the <li.*?> excludes the word Unplayed. (The word comes after the .*? and before the >.

Edit:

Want to catch: http://gamercard.xbox.com/en-US/Stallion83.card

            <li >

                <a href="http://live.xbox.com/en-us/GameCenter/Achievements?title=1464993792&amp;compareTo=Stallion83">
                   <img src="http://tiles.xbox.com/tiles/vD/fP/1Gdsb2JhbA9ECgUPGgIfVl9TL2ljb24vMC84MDAwIAAAAAAAAPvgN6M=.jpg" alt="F.E.A.R. 3" title="F.E.A.R. 3" />
                   <span class="Title">F.E.A.R. 3</span>
                   <span class="LastPlayed">6/24/2011</span>
                   <span class="EarnedGamerscore">415</span>
                   <span class="AvailableGamerscore">1000</span>
                   <span class="EarnedAchievements">23</span>
                   <span class="AvailableAchievements">50</span>
                   <span class="PercentageComplete">46%</span>
                </a>
            </li>

            <li class="Complete" >

                <a href="http://live.xbox.com/en-US/GameCenter/Achievements?title=1096157212&amp;compareTo=Im%20RedJ">
                   <img src="http://tiles.xbox.com/tiles/HI/L4/1Gdsb2JhbA9ECgQJGgYfVl4gL2ljb24vMC84MDAwIAAAAAAAAPvXggM=.jpg" alt="Call of Duty: WaW" title="Call of Duty: WaW" />
                   <span class="Title">Call of Duty: WaW</span>
                   <span class="LastPlayed">6/21/2011</span>
                   <span class="EarnedGamerscore">1500</span>
                   <span class="AvailableGamerscore">1500</span>
                   <span class="EarnedAchievements">66</span>
                   <span class="AvailableAchievements">66</span>
                   <span class="PercentageComplete">100%</span>
                </a>
            </li>

Dont want: http://gamercard.xbox.com/en-US/test.card

            <li class="Unplayed"></li>

            <li class="Unplayed"></li>

Thanks.

You are already doing something wrong if you use regex to parse HTML. What about a proper HTML parser? — Felix Kling
– Felix Kling, Commented Jun 25, 2011 at 13:03
Because I don't need that much overhead for the project I'm doing. — Brian
– Brian, Commented Jun 25, 2011 at 13:04

agent-j · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-25 13:41:19Z

5

Try this. The lookahead makes sure that the rest of the <li> tag does not contain Unplayed.

preg_match_all( '#<li(?=(.(?!Unplayed))*?>).*?>(.(?!Unplayed))*?</li>#s', $card_html, $activity );

Edit: I couldn't tell from your example, but it sounds like unplayed can occur both outside and inside the begin tag for <li>.

edited Jun 25, 2011 at 13:41

answered Jun 25, 2011 at 13:07

agent-j

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8 Comments

Brian Over a year ago

Close. There are 5 results by default. Your attempt removes all but 1 of the contents containing Unplayed.

agent-j Over a year ago

Oh. Great. So if you post your example html, I'm sure we can get this figured out.

Brian Over a year ago

I've added the link from where I'm pulling the info from.

agent-j Over a year ago

@Dark, take a look at the new one.

Brian Over a year ago

Its still returning one empty recent game.

|

anubhava · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-25 15:01:23Z

Regex is not the right tool for this task and you can see many explanations on SO for this. Use DOMDocument like this:

function innerHTML($node){
  $doc = new DOMDocument();
  foreach ($node->childNodes as $child)
    $doc->appendChild($doc->importNode($child, true));   
  return $doc->saveHTML();
}
$dom = new DOMDocument();
$dom->loadHTML($content);
// To hold all your liv...
$lis = array();
// Get all li nodes
$liNodes = $dom->getElementsByTagName("li");
foreach($liNodes as $liNode) {
  // Check the class attr of each li
  $cl = $liNode->getAttribute("class");
  if ($cl != "Unplayed")
       $lis[] = innerHTML($liNode);
}
print_r($lis);

OUTPUT for above input html:

Array
(
    [0] => 
                <a href="http://live.xbox.com/en-us/GameCenter/Achievements?title=1464993792&amp;compareTo=Stallion83">
                   <img src="http://tiles.xbox.com/tiles/vD/fP/1Gdsb2JhbA9ECgUPGgIfVl9TL2ljb24vMC84MDAwIAAAAAAAAPvgN6M=.jpg" alt="F.E.A.R. 3" title="F.E.A.R. 3"><span class="Title">F.E.A.R. 3</span>
                   <span class="LastPlayed">6/24/2011</span>
                   <span class="EarnedGamerscore">415</span>
                   <span class="AvailableGamerscore">1000</span>
                   <span class="EarnedAchievements">23</span>
                   <span class="AvailableAchievements">50</span>
                   <span class="PercentageComplete">46%</span>
                </a>            

    [1] => 
                <a href="http://live.xbox.com/en-US/GameCenter/Achievements?title=1096157212&amp;compareTo=Im%20RedJ">
                   <img src="http://tiles.xbox.com/tiles/HI/L4/1Gdsb2JhbA9ECgQJGgYfVl4gL2ljb24vMC84MDAwIAAAAAAAAPvXggM=.jpg" alt="Call of Duty: WaW" title="Call of Duty: WaW"><span class="Title">Call of Duty: WaW</span>
                   <span class="LastPlayed">6/21/2011</span>
                   <span class="EarnedGamerscore">1500</span>
                   <span class="AvailableGamerscore">1500</span>
                   <span class="EarnedAchievements">66</span>
                   <span class="AvailableAchievements">66</span>
                   <span class="PercentageComplete">100%</span>
                </a> 
)

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