How to get the value of groups in preg_match_all php?

Question

Hi, My pattern is:

'<span\s+id="bodyHolder_newstextDetail_nwstxtPicPane"><a\s+href="(.*)"\s+target="_blank"><img\s+alt="(.*)"\s+title="(.*)"\s+src=\'(.*)\'\s+/>'

And the string:

<div class="nwstxtpic">
                        <span id="bodyHolder_newstextDetail_nwstxtPicPane"><a href="xxxxx" target="_blank"><img alt="xxxxx" title="xxxxx" src='xxxxx' />

Well, my php code for finding and getting the value of 4 groups that i have defined in patern is:

$picinfo=preg_match_all('/<span\s+id="bodyHolder_newstextDetail_nwstxtPicPane"><a\s+href="(.*)"\s+target="_blank"><img\s+alt="(.*)"\s+title="(.*)"\s+src=\'(.*)\'\s+/>/',$newscontent,$matches);
foreach ($matches[0] as $match) {
    echo $match;
}

I dont know how to get the value of these 4 groups

href="(.*)"

alt="(.*)"

title="(.*)"

src=\'(.*)\'

Whould you please Help me? Thank you.

it may be better to use xml Parsers instead of regular expressions — Oussama Jilal, Aug 13 '12 at 10:45
@Yazmat Whould you please give me an example? I dont know how can i use xml parser. Does it works as preg_mach to find some pattern? Thank you — Usherghelich, Aug 13 '12 at 10:50
See this post : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3577641/how-to-parse-and-process-html-with-php/3577662#3577662 — Oussama Jilal, Aug 13 '12 at 10:58

cleong · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-13T16:04:49.100

7

preg_match_all() by default returns the result in pattern order, which is not very convenient. Pass the PREG_SET_ORDER flag so that the data is arranged in a more logical way:

$newscontent='<span id="bodyHolder_newstextDetail_nwstxtPicPane"><a href="xxxxx" target="_blank"><img alt="xxxxx" title="xxxxx" src=\'xxxxxbb\' />'; 

$picinfo=preg_match_all('/<span\s+id="bodyHolder_newstextDetail_nwstxtPicPane"><a\s+href="(.*)"\s+target="_blank"><img\s+alt="(.*)"\s+title="(.*)"\s+src=\'(.*)\'\s+\/>/',$newscontent,$matches,PREG_SET_ORDER);
foreach ($matches as $match) {
    $href = $match[1];
    $alt = $match[2];
    $title = $match[3];
    $src = $match[4];
    echo $title;
}

edited Aug 13 '12 at 16:04

answered Aug 13 '12 at 11:05

cleong

7,242
4
31
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Hi, Thanks for your response. But still not working. Page prints nothing! The code is:'; $picinfo=preg_match_all('//',$newscontent,$matches,PREG_SET_ORDER); foreach ($matches as $match) { $href = $match[1]; $alt = $match[2]; $title = $match[3]; $src = $match[4]; echo $title; } ?> – Usherghelich Aug 13 '12 at 14:42
You forgot to escape the last slash in your regular expression, that's why. – cleong Aug 13 '12 at 14:52
Hi, I'm so sorry to say that but I am just a beginner! How can i escape the last slash. Would you please show it in the code? Thank you – Usherghelich Aug 13 '12 at 14:57
Even I have changed the code by my thought of escaping last slash so:'; $picinfo=preg_match_all('/<‌a\s+href="(.*)"\s+target="_blank">/',$newscontent,$matches,PREG_SET_ORDER); foreach ($matches as $match) { $href = $match[1]; $alt = $match[2]; $title = $match[3]; $src = $match[4]; echo $title; } ?> But still not working. – Usherghelich Aug 13 '12 at 15:00
The testing page is: http://usme.ir/news/example.php. I just copied this code in php file but you can see that there is no result. – Usherghelich Aug 13 '12 at 15:03
The /> part at the end needs to be \/> – cleong Aug 13 '12 at 15:18
I just changed the code as you said but it is not working. the code: '; $picinfo=preg_match_all('/<‌a\s+href="(.*)"\s+target="_blank">/',$newscontent,$matches,PREG_SET_ORDER); foreach ($matches as $match) { $href = $match[1]; $alt = $match[2]; $title = $match[3]; $src = $match[4]; echo $title; } ?> PLEASE HELP ME. Thank you. – Usherghelich Aug 13 '12 at 15:53
YES, That is working. You are so awesome for helping me solve this mystery. REALLY THANK YOU. – Usherghelich Aug 13 '12 at 16:20

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

1

Your RegEx is correct, as the manual says, by default PREG_PATTERN_ORDER is followed which orders results so that $matches[0] is an array of full pattern matches, $matches[1] is an array of strings matched by the first parenthesized subpattern, and so on.

So as in your case, $matches1 will contain the href, $matches2 will contain the alt and so on. Like,

for($i = 0; $i <= count($matches[0]); $i++ )
     echo "href = {$matches[1][$i]}, alt = {$matches[2][$i]}";

$matches[0] will contain the full matched strings.

BTW, it is always advisable to use an XML parser, try DOMDocument. The obligatory.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

Community

1
1

answered Aug 13 '12 at 11:03

Shubham

21,300
18
66
89

Hi,Thanks so much for your response. I have checked it bot still Nothing as value! The code is:'; $picinfo=preg_match_all('//',$newscontent,$matches); for($i = 0; $i <= count($matches[0]); $i++ ) echo "href = {$matches[1][$i]}, alt = {$matches[2][$i]}"; ?> Would you please help me? thank you – Usherghelich Aug 13 '12 at 14:47

How to get the value of groups in preg_match_all php?

2 Answers2