How to split an HTML string into chunks in PHP?

Question

I would like to split a string efficiently into different sub strings like this :

  <li><a href="">One</a></li><li><a href>Two</a></li><li><a href>Three</a></li>.....<li><a herf>Last</a></li>

I would like to split this string in 3 parts and put each string in a variable.

The first variable $first should contain the first li (<li>One</li>) The second variable $second should contain the rest expect the last (<li>Two</li><li>Three</li>.....) The third variable $third should contain the last li (<li>Last</li>)

Anyone can help ?

$begining_tree = strstr($variable, '', true); $end_tree = strstr($variables, ''); — Mamadou, Aug 22 '16 at 10:02
Your input string clearly is HTML, so why not treat it as such: Parse the markup (PHP comes with `DOMDocument` as a builtin parser), and iterate over the `li` nodes — Elias Van Ootegem, Aug 22 '16 at 10:05
`DOMDocument` will also give you a handy `DOMNOde` object which has the attributes `->firstChild` and `->lastChild` - so you could then just pull the child nodes and extract the first and last children to give you your 3 vars. — CD001, Aug 22 '16 at 10:07

Bart · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-22T11:32:58.763

1

Should work:

<?php 

$dom = new DOMDocument;
$dom->loadHTML('<li><a href="#">One</a></li><li><a href="#">Two</a></li><li><a href="#">Three</a></li><li><a href="#">Last</a></li>');
$liTags = $dom->getElementsByTagName('li');

$chunks = array();
foreach ($liTags as $li) {
    $chunks[] = '<li>'.strip_tags($li->nodeValue).'</li>';
}

list($first,$second,$third) = array(
   array_slice($chunks,0,1),
   array_slice($chunks,1,count($chunks)-2),
   array_slice($chunks,-1),    
);


?>

edited Aug 22 '16 at 11:32

answered Aug 22 '16 at 10:19

Bart

1,268
2
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Thanks, I have edited my question to include a tag I omitted (). This method above would not work , any idea ? – – Mamadou Aug 22 '16 at 11:14
I edited my code, try now – Bart Aug 22 '16 at 11:33
This is an awesome solution. TX – Mamadou Aug 22 '16 at 12:47
insteda of `strip_tag($li->nodeValue)`, as per documentation of the `DOMNode` class (cf my answer): `$li->textContent` will work equally well, if not better – Elias Van Ootegem Aug 22 '16 at 13:16

Elias Van Ootegem · Answer 2 · 2016-08-22T13:14:56.277

The best thing to do here, because you're dealing with markup, is to treat the data as what it is: HTML. Parse the DOM tree, iterate over the nodes you're interested in and get the data like so:

$dom = new DOMDocument;
$dom->loadHTML($data);//parses the markup string
$li = $dom->getElementsByTagName('li');
$liValues = [];
foreach ($li as $elem) {
    $liValues[] = $elem->textContent; // not nodeValue if the nodes can contain other elements, like in your case an "a" tag
}

To get the first, last and middle elements, just write this:

$length = $li->length; // or count($li); to get the total number of li's
$nodes = [
    $li->item(0), //first
    $li->item(round($length/2)), // middle
    $li->item($length -1), // last
];
//or, given that you don't need the actual nodes
$nodes = [
    $li->item(0)->textContent,
    $li->item(round($length/2))->textContent,
    $li->item($length -1)->textContent,
];

Or just get the parent node (ul or ol), and use $parent->firstChild and $parent->lastChild to get the first and last elements in the list, as CD001 suggested in the comments.

Useful links:

You can use the attributes property of the DOMNode elements in the DOMNodeList returned by getElementsByTagName to further exapand on the data you store

This helps me by using array_shift and array_pop on liValues. I dont need the nodes array. Also the lenght of of $li can not be obtained by count($li) but with $li->lenght since $li is a dom object NOW. Thank you — Mamadou, Aug 22 '16 at 11:00
I have edited my question to include a tag I omitted (). This method above would not work , any idea ? — Mamadou, Aug 22 '16 at 11:13
@Mamadou: replace `$elem->nodeValue` with `$elem->textContent` as documented in the second link in my answer: `textContent` is the text within a node _and its descendants_. Meaning that `
@Mamadou: `count($li)` ***should*** work, given that the `DomNodeList` return value implements the `Traversable` interface (so the object supports array access, `foreach` iteration, and `count`) — Elias Van Ootegem, Aug 22 '16 at 13:21

score -2 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 22 '16 at 10:01

-2

you can try with explode

see code example:

<?php
// Example 1
$pizza  = "piece1 piece2 piece3 piece4 piece5 piece6";
$pieces = explode(" ", $pizza);
echo $pieces[0]; // piece1
echo $pieces[1]; // piece2

// Example 2
$data = "foo:*:1023:1000::/home/foo:/bin/sh";
list($user, $pass, $uid, $gid, $gecos, $home, $shell) = explode(":", $data);
echo $user; // foo
echo $pass; // *

?>

answered Aug 22 '16 at 10:01

fernando

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But this example is not what OP is looking for? – Gynteniuxas Aug 22 '16 at 10:02
not this, i have a fixed string send by an API for some purpuse I need to extract the first li , the middle of the chain and the last li – Mamadou Aug 22 '16 at 10:07

How to split an HTML string into chunks in PHP?

3 Answers3

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