PHP: How to convert this string into an associative using Regular Expressions?

Question

I have many strings like these (HTML ones). Long select/option tags like the following.

<option value="93">Afghanistan (93)</option>
<option value="355">Albania (355)</option>
<option value="213">Algeria (213)</option>
<option value="376">Andorra (376)</option>
<option value="244">Angola (244)</option>
<option value="264">Anguilla (264)</option>

I intend to convert this into a PHP array like,

array("93"=>"Afghanistan (93)","355"=>"Albania (355)","213"=>"Algeria (213)", ...)

I've never worked on RegEx in PHP so don't know how to approach this. What code/functions should I be using to convert such data?

I think you need to learn RegEx before asking on Stackoverflow. Your question doesn't show any research effort. — Shiplu Mokaddim, Dec 11 '11 at 08:17
@Johnsyweb -- StackOverflow should parse question text strategically for "regex" and "html"; if the condition is satisfied, the user should be redirected there with a confirmation box before posting. — Dan Lugg, Dec 11 '11 at 08:22

Shiplu Mokaddim · Answer 1 · 2011-12-11T12:10:34.887

1

This is a basic regular expression question.

preg_match_all("#\"(\d+)\">((\w+) \(\d+\))<#", $data, $m);
$result = array_combine($m[1], $m[2]);

But I think you need

preg_match_all("#(\d+)\">(\w+)#", $data, $m);
$result = array_combine($m[1], $m[2]);

edited Dec 11 '11 at 12:10

answered Dec 11 '11 at 08:15

Shiplu Mokaddim

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 11 '11 at 13:39

1

Use:

preg_match_all('/<option value="([0-9]+)">(.*?)<\/option>/is', $data, $matches);

$result=array();
foreach($matches[1] as $key=>$value){
    $result[$value]=$matches[2][$key];
}
var_dump($result);

I suggest you to use DomDocument class for this kind of work. http://www.php.net/manual/fr/class.domdocument.php

answered Dec 11 '11 at 13:39

Darm

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+1 But instead of: `(.*?)` I'd use the more specific: `([^<]+\(\1\))`. Regex is perfectly ok to use with HTML when the target string is highly specific like this one. – ridgerunner Dec 11 '11 at 19:37

PHP: How to convert this string into an associative using Regular Expressions?

2 Answers2