preg_match Regex wont find matches (but it works on regex101)

Question

Here is my regex101 example which works : https://regex101.com/r/fE6rO9/2 (you have to wait a few secondes because it's big )

here is my PHP

    $content = htmlentities($contentCode);
    /* correct echo when i copy paste it into regex101 */
    echo $content;

    // copy past from regex101
    $re = "/<\\/form><table class=\"forumline\" width=\"100%\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"1\" cellpadding=\"0\">(.*)<\\/table><table width=\"100%\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">/"; 

    preg_match($re, $content, $matches);

    var_dump($matches);

but when i run it, it echoes :

array (size=0)
  empty

Any idea what the problem is ?

This is the regex taken appart :

"/<\\/form><table class=\"forumline\" width=\"100%\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"1\" cellpadding=\"0\">(.*)<\\/table><table width=\"100%\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">/";

Please post a clear ***INPUT*** and desired ***OUTPUT*** sample — Pedro Lobito, Apr 25 '16 at 23:20
The main problem is that you use regex to parse html. Take the time to learn how to use DOMDocument. — Casimir et Hippolyte, Apr 25 '16 at 23:21
the desired OUTPUT is in that link : https://regex101.com/r/fE6rO9/2 => I expect 1 output, 1 match — Bidoubiwa, Apr 25 '16 at 23:21
Your regex doesn't work due the previous `htmlentities`. Remove it and it will work. ... but you have to use DOMDocument. — fusion3k, Apr 25 '16 at 23:27

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

2

I've tested your regex and it seems to work if you remove

$content = htmlentities($contentCode);

simply use:

$content = $contentCode;

Notes:

Please make sure you read You can't parse [X]HTML with regex
Some alternatives to regex are DOMDocument or simplehtmldom

edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

Community

1
1

answered Apr 25 '16 at 23:35

Pedro Lobito

94,083
31
258
268

Haha oke ! I will not use Regex to parse HTML. I know how to retrieve all the information with jquery but since i'm using PHP is there another way of retrieving the information ? – Bidoubiwa Apr 25 '16 at 23:50
1

You can use php [DOMDocument](https://secure.php.net/manual/en/class.domdocument.php) or [simplehtmldom](http://simplehtmldom.sourceforge.net/) – Pedro Lobito Apr 25 '16 at 23:53
Oh ok that's pretty powerfull to get every information of every node. But When i just loadHTML with $contentCode I recieve a lot of errors. With my regex i just took the part of the html i needed and with the DOMdocument i can access each row very easely. – Bidoubiwa Apr 26 '16 at 00:55

preg_match Regex wont find matches (but it works on regex101)

1 Answers1