how can i create a preg_match_all regex pattern for php to give me this code?
<td class="class2"> </td>
<td class="class2" align="right"><span class="DarkText">I WANT THIS TEXT</span></td>
To get me the text inside the span class? thanks!
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Is this the only span class in the the text string?NullUserException– NullUserException2010-09-16 00:06:42 +00:00Commented Sep 16, 2010 at 0:06
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3xpath is much better suited to this task.Frank Farmer– Frank Farmer2010-09-16 00:07:27 +00:00Commented Sep 16, 2010 at 0:07
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1Please don't use regexes to parse HTML. It is a path to sorrow and broken code.Andy Lester– Andy Lester2010-09-16 22:15:37 +00:00Commented Sep 16, 2010 at 22:15
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2 Answers
You can use:
preg_match_all("!<span[^>]+>(.*?)</span>!", $str, $matches);
Then your text will be inside the first capture group (as seen on rubular)
With that out of the way, note that regex shouldn't be used to parse HTML. You will be better off using an XML parser, unless it's something really, really simple.
answered Sep 16, 2010 at 0:08
NullUserException
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1 Comment
alex
+1 for answer and pointing to best solution (parser). And for including the link to Bobince's famous answer.
You can also not use ! at start and end, and use much simpler code with T-Regx
$pattern = "<span[^>]+>(.*?)</span>"; // no delimiters :)
$string = '
<td class="class2"> </td>
<td class="class2" align="right"><span class="DarkText">I WANT THIS
TEXT</span></td>
';
Then just use match()->group():
$text = Pattern::of($pattern)->match($string)->group(1)->first();
$text // 'I WANT THIS TEXT'
Check it online: https://regex101.com/r/nxTvS1/1
