Parse a HTML document and get a specific element in PHP and save its HTML

Question

All I want to do is save the first div with attribute role="main" as a string from an external URL using PHP.

So far I have this:

$doc = new DOMDocument();
@$doc->loadHTMLFile("http://example.com/");

$xpath = new DOMXPath($doc);
$elements = $xpath->query('//div[@role="main"]');
$str = "";
if ($elements->length > 0) {
    $str = $elements->item(0)->textContent;
}
echo htmlentities($str);

But unfortunately the $str does not seem to be displaying the HTML tags. Just the text.

Can you var_dump($elements->item(0)); without the ->textContent — Liam Sorsby, Jul 23 '15 at 16:55
possible duplicate of [How to get innerHTML of DOMNode?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2087103/how-to-get-innerhtml-of-domnode) — , Jul 23 '15 at 16:56
`textContent` is exactly that, just the text content without HTML. — Josh J, Jul 23 '15 at 20:59

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 23 '15 at 19:13

1

You can get the HTML via the saveHTML() method.

$str = $doc->saveHTML($elements->item(0));

edited Jul 23 '15 at 19:13

Yahya Uddin

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answered Jul 23 '15 at 17:01

Rob W

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That method does not exists. I think you were thinking of DOM Document – Yahya Uddin Jul 23 '15 at 17:02
edited your anser to add the ownerDocument bit. Thanks works now! – Yahya Uddin Jul 23 '15 at 17:04
Thanks, fixed answer. – Rob W Jul 23 '15 at 17:04
If `ownerDocument` works, then so be it. I believe both methods should work! – Rob W Jul 23 '15 at 17:05
Lol, my edit was slightly different: `$elements->item(0)->ownerDocument->saveHTML()` – Yahya Uddin Jul 23 '15 at 17:05
1

Apologies! Please remove my answer as it's wrong. Your ones correct though! – Yahya Uddin Jul 23 '15 at 18:53

Parse a HTML document and get a specific element in PHP and save its HTML

1 Answers1