Stuck with php regular expression

Question

So I have been trying to figure out regex to capture multiple sections of my data but, seems I've been failing since last two days now...:(

Please help Let's say following is my data :

<div class="tabs_container">
<ul class="tabs">
    ##BEGINLOOP##gAs##
        <li><a href="#">##title##</a></li>
    ##ENDLOOP##
</ul>
    ##BEGINLOOP##LI##
    <div class="tabs_content">##title## is ##content##</div>
    ##ENDLOOP##
</div>

and i want to capture following group:

The text before ##BEGINLOOP##
The text after ##BEGINLOOP## and before ##(gAs in first and LI in second)
Text After ##ENDLOOP##

I have been trying various regex combination but nothing worked for giving me the exact solution. This was my last try

'/(?:##BEGINLOOP##)([a-z|A-Z]*)##(.+?)(?=##ENDLOOP##)(?:##ENDLOOP##)/s'

I am using PHP preg_match_all function

Please help ?

Duplicate question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5727185/regular-expression-to-match-block-of-html?rq=1 — Rolando Isidoro, May 12 '13 at 09:44
It's not a duplicate, The added post is about HTML parsing, where as this is about PHP parsing... — Deepak, May 12 '13 at 09:51
Check again, they both relate to "How to parse HTML using PHP", only the HTML code to parse changes. — Rolando Isidoro, May 12 '13 at 09:55

Arnaud Le Blanc · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-12T09:52:48.153

2

The regex is close to be right. Just a few notes:

[a-z|A-Z] does not mean what you think it means. It means accept all chars from a to z, and the char |, and all chars from A to Z. You want [a-zA-Z].

(?=##ENDLOOP##) means that the next group matches only if preceded by ##ENDLOOP##, so ##ENDLOOP## will match only if preceded by ##ENDLOOP##. You may want to remove (?=##ENDLOOP##).

This works:

'/(?:##BEGINLOOP##)([a-zA-Z]*)##(.+?)(?:##ENDLOOP##)/s'

Try it here: http://3v4l.org/aCvvY

If you also want to also capture the parts outside of ##BEGINLOOP##...##ENDLOOP##, for the whole document, preg_split does the work:

$parts = preg_split('/(?:##BEGINLOOP##)([a-zA-Z]*)##(.+?)(?:##ENDLOOP##)/s', $subject, -1, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);

Try it here: http://3v4l.org/LWaQS

edited May 12 '13 at 09:52

answered May 12 '13 at 09:44

Arnaud Le Blanc

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My problem is not with that part, the problem is i am unable to capture the group outside the ##BEGINLOOP##...##ENDLOOP## ..? – Deepak May 12 '13 at 09:49
Added a `preg_split` example that does just that. – Arnaud Le Blanc May 12 '13 at 09:53

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 12 '13 at 09:44

0

try:

preg_match('@(.*?)##BEGINLOOP##(.*?)##(.*?)##ENDLOOP##(.*?)@s', $data, $matches);

var_dump($matches);

answered May 12 '13 at 09:44

kelunik

6,750
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1
This doesn't make the correct group, in first group it gives me `
##BEGINLOOP##gAs##
##title##
##ENDLOOP##`
– Deepak May 12 '13 at 09:50

Stuck with php regular expression

2 Answers2