Using PHP PCRE to fetch div content

Question

Hi,

I'm trying to fetch data from a div (based on his id), using PHP's PCRE. The goal is to fetch div's contents based on his id, and using recursivity / depth to get everything inside it. The main problem here is to get other divs inside the "main div", because regex would stop once it gets the next </div> it finds after the initial <div id="test">.

I've tryed so many different approaches to the subject, and none of it worked. The best solution, in my oppinion, is to use the R parameter (Recursion), but never got it to work properly.

Any Ideais?

Thanks in advance :D

Answer 1

You'd be much better off using some form of DOM parser - regex really isn't suited to this problem. If all you want is basic HTML dom parsing, something like simplehtmldom would be right up your alley. It's trivial to install (just include a single PHP file) and trivial to use (2-3 lines will do what you need).

include('simple-html-dom.php');

$dom = str_get_html($bunchofhtmlcode);
$testdiv = $dom->find('div#test',0); // 0 for the first occurrence
$testdiv_contents = $testdiv->innertext;