Regular expression - need to get string from html comment

Question

I need to get string from comment in HTML file, I was trying to do it with DOM, but I didn't find good solution with this method.

So I want to try it with regular expressions, but I can't find satisfactory solution. Please, can you help me?

This is what I need:

<!--adress-"String here I need to get"-->

Thanks in advance for answer

HTML isn't a regular language. It cannot be correctly parsed with regular expressions. — Mark Byers
– Mark Byers, Commented Oct 2, 2011 at 18:38
@Mark: you shouldn't parse HTML with a Regex. However, the argumentation that HTML is not a regular language is usually bogus (since regular expressions are rarely regular, in any existing implementation) — sehe
– sehe, Commented Oct 2, 2011 at 18:40

genesis · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-02 18:40:01Z

4

Look into $matches after this code

preg_match('~<!--adress-"(.*?)"-->~msi', $string, $matches);

answered Oct 2, 2011 at 18:40

genesis

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7 Comments

genesis Over a year ago

Does anybody care to explain his/her downvote so I can improve my answer?

Daniel Trebbien Over a year ago

I don't know who downvoted you, but it's probably a knee-jerk reaction to your writing a regular expression to "parse HTML". I think it's just wrong of him or her, though, because I don't see why a regular expression can not be used to extract HTML comments.

Daniel Trebbien Over a year ago

One thing: Not all HTML comments are matched by your regexp. Comments are delimited by -- within the markup declaration open delimiter (<!) and the markup declaration close delimiter (>).

genesis Over a year ago

@DanielTrebbien: I just followed OP's needs

Madara's Ghost Over a year ago

@DanielTrebbien according the the specs,  ends it, so I fail to see what's wrong with that answer?

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SLaks · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-02 18:40:33Z

1

HTML comments are regular; you can just match  and get the first group.

This assumes that the comments are always well-formed and always have a quoted string containing no quotes.

answered Oct 2, 2011 at 18:40

SLaks

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Comments

Vladimir Fesko · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-02 18:50:56Z

1

It will be more accurate:

$regex = '<!--(.+?)-"{0,1}(.+?)"{0,1}-->';
preg_match_all($regex, $html, $matches_array);

Just do the var_dump($matches_array) and see results.

answered Oct 2, 2011 at 18:50

Vladimir Fesko

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