Regex in PHP doesn't work

Question

       $subject= "Citation flow <img src='/static/images/icons/help.png'>
                                </span>
                            </p>
                            <p style='font-size: 150%;'><b>11</b></p>";
           $pattern="/Citation flow[.]+<b>([0-9]+)<\/b>/i";

          preg_match_all($pattern, $subject,$matches,PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);

          print_r($matches);

I want to capture the number 11 inisde the bold tags.. but my regex expression doesnt work.. why?

UPDATE:

I came up with this.. but I am not 100% it is the best solution:

$pattern="/Citation flow[\s\S]*<b>([0-9]+)<\/b>/i";

When you say `[.]+` you actually mean `.+`. `[.]+` matches a string of dots; the dot is not special inside a character class. — lanzz, Jun 18 '12 at 12:15
I'd strongly recommend using an actual HTML parser, like simpledom - http://simplehtmldom.sourceforge.net/. — Adam, Jun 18 '12 at 12:17
You seem to be trying to parse HTML with regular expressions. You may want to read http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/110707 — Wooble, Jun 18 '12 at 12:17
I know about simple_html_parse.. but the doc I am trying to scrape hasnt got many unique tags — Dmitry Makovetskiyd, Jun 18 '12 at 12:22

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 18 '12 at 12:15

3

Well, it cannot match as Citation flow has a space after it, not an arbitrary number of dots. You probably meant

(?si)Citation flow.+<b>(\d+)</b>

answered Jun 18 '12 at 12:15

Joey

344,408
85
689
683

whats the difference between \d+ and what i did – Dmitry Makovetskiyd Jun 18 '12 at 12:17
Don't forget to use `/s` or `(?s)`. – Qtax Jun 18 '12 at 12:17
Dmitry: `\d` is a shorthand for `[0-9]`. – Joey Jun 18 '12 at 12:19
You can put the `s` and `i` options after the trailing delimiter in `preg_match`. It's just a way of specifying regex options inline. – Joey Jun 18 '12 at 13:01

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 18 '12 at 12:20

0

Do you not want

$pattern="/Citation flow[.]+<b>([0-9]+)<\/b>/si";

answered Jun 18 '12 at 12:20

BugFinder

17,474
4
36
51

Unlikely, as that would also try matching literal dots. – Joey Jun 18 '12 at 13:02

Regex in PHP doesn't work

2 Answers2