Getting required element from foreach loop

Question

i am using the following code to scrape some data from amazon

$nodelist = $xpath_cat->query('//li[@id="SalesRank"]/text()');
foreach ($nodelist as $node) {
$nodearr[] = trim($node->textContent);
}
var_dump($nodearr);

and dumping the result, the output is

array
 0 => string '' (length=0)
  1 => string '#14,000 Paid in Kindle Store (' (length=30)
  2 => string ')' (length=1)
  3 => string '' (length=0)
  4 => string '#21,322 Paid in Kindle Store (' (length=30)
  5 => string ')' (length=1)
  6 => string '' (length=0)
  7 => string '#20,957 Paid in Kindle Store (' (length=30)
  8 => string ')' (length=1)

what is want is on # part which is element 2 in array like

#"#20,957 Paid in Kindle Store"

how can modify the code to get my output? i was thinking it to use unset() but i am confused in implementing it. also, there is "(" which also needs to be deleted from the string

Guide me please..how can i modify my code?

Dimitre Novatchev · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-15 04:51:11Z

1

To select only the wanted subset of the currently selected text nodes, use:

//li[@id="SalesRank"]/text()[starts-with(., '#')]

You can select each individual such node using its 1-based index.

For example:

(//li[@id="SalesRank"]/text()[starts-with(., '#')])[3]

selects this text node:

#20,957 Paid in Kindle Store (

To get the text without the trailing "(" character, use the translate() (or substring()) function:

   translate((//li[@id="SalesRank"]/text()[starts-with(., '#')])[3], 
             '(', 
             '')

when evaluated produces:

#20,957 Paid in Kindle Store

answered Feb 15, 2012 at 4:51

Dimitre Novatchev

244k27 gold badges308 silver badges438 bronze badges

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

Comments

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 11:56:41Z

1

This seems to be answered pretty thoroughly here.

It looks like the accepted answer uses:

substring-before(normalize-space(/html/body//ul/li[@id="SalesRank"]/b[1]/following-sibling::text()[1])," ")

And also shows some other nice options.

edited May 23, 2017 at 11:56

CommunityBot

11 silver badge

answered Feb 14, 2012 at 16:28

Kato

40.6k6 gold badges124 silver badges149 bronze badges

2 Comments

Zaffar Saffee Over a year ago

sorry for mistake, i had opened that question a bit late and got the updated answer after posting this question..well...what i think ..should i use the update xpath?

Kato Over a year ago

I have no idea, but I'm as curious as you :)

rwos · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-14 16:57:47Z

0

You could probably just tweak your xpath query a little, but you could use also array_filter() to filter the array. For example like this:

array_filter($data, function($e) {return $e[0] == "#";});

With an input of, for example

$data = array('#14,000 Paid in Kindle Store (', '', '(');

the above array_filter gives

array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(30) "#14,000 Paid in Kindle Store ("
}

You could then filter/transform the single values, for example using array_map:

array_map(function($e) {return rtrim($e, ' (');}, $data);

which would leave you with:

array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(28) "#14,000 Paid in Kindle Store"
}

edited Feb 14, 2012 at 16:57

answered Feb 14, 2012 at 16:32

rwos

1,8911 gold badge16 silver badges18 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Getting required element from foreach loop

3 Answers 3

Comments

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

Comments

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related