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Question

Regexp to extract sources from different video embeds

Answer 1

+1 A:

How not to do it even though it works:

$str = <<<HTML
<object width="550" height="400">
    <param name="movie" value="somefilename.swf">
    <embed src="somefilename.swf" width="550" height="400">
    </embed>
</object>
HTML;

$matches = array();
if (preg_match_all('/(src|value)="([^"]+)"/', $str, $matches)) {
   print_r($matches);
}
// Array
// (
//     [0] => Array
//         (
//             [0] => value="somefilename.swf"
//             [1] => src="somefilename.swf"
//         )
// 
//     [1] => Array
//         (
//             [0] => value
//             [1] => src
//         )
// 
//     [2] => Array
//         (
//             [0] => somefilename.swf
//             [1] => somefilename.swf
//         )
// 
// )

How to really do it:

This is an example of how to parse HTML with simplehtmldom, and this is what you should do instead using regular expressions (though you could use any other HTML parser, not strictly simplehtmldom, most of them have similar API).

<?php
include('simple_html_dom.php');

$str = <<<HTML
<object width="550" height="400">
    <param name="movie" value="somefilename.swf">
    <embed src="somefilename.swf" width="550" height="400">
    </embed>
</object>
HTML;

$html = str_get_html($str);
$embed = $html->find('embed', 0);
echo $embed->src;
// prints somefilename.swf

$object = $html->find('object param', 0);
echo $object->value;
// prints somefilename.swf
?>

rebus 2010-05-09 02:07:46

This might be a novice question, by how do I handle the quotes? I have $regexp = '(src|data)="([^"]+)"'

Ben 2010-05-11 23:16:24

Here, i expanded a bit on the answer, including the gurun8 and Delan Azabani advices which is really the way you want to go i would expect.

rebus 2010-05-12 14:10:20

Awesome, this looks so much easier and effective than the regex. Thanks for the update!

Ben 2010-05-12 17:56:40

Answer 2

+1 A:

Have you considered parsing the HTML as XML (provided the HTML is well formed) to extract node and attribute data rather than relying on regex?

gurun8 2010-05-09 02:08:36

I'm not really familiar with this process, could you point me in the right direction?

Ben 2010-05-11 22:56:12

Or parse as SGML/HTML5 parser, which is what is meant to parse HTML.

Delan Azabani 2010-05-12 00:43:12

Hey Ben! My apologies, I didn't see your comment before. Here's a PHP XML DOM link: http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_xml_dom.asp and this library looks interesting as well: http://simplehtmldom.sourceforge.net/ Delan's suggestion could be helpful too. Delan do you have a helpful link you could recommend?

gurun8 2010-05-12 02:59:36

Thanks! I will be looking into simplehtmldom for sure!

Ben 2010-05-12 17:57:51

Answer 3

A:

To solve the regexp:

/(?:src|data)="([^"]+)"/

A hint: avoid embedding video with embed and object - that's so 2002. Try using the much simpler and more powerful video tag (which requires no plugins).

Delan Azabani 2010-05-09 02:14:28

I would love to use the video tag, but not all browsers support it yet...

Ben 2010-05-11 22:57:49

Would you rather `no IE support` or `buggy, insecure and non-futureproofed technology`? ;)

Delan Azabani 2010-05-12 00:42:43

Ha, nice response, but since 60%+ of the users are IE, I'm stuck until an update.

Ben 2010-05-12 17:53:37

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Regexp to extract sources from different video embeds

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