HTML table parsing, capturing with back referencing problem.

[Buglish]

Hi,

Task :
-Capture a HTML table with use of regular expression from a text string buffer(entire document).
–Pass it to another function to create a multi dimension array out of it.
- Pass it to another function to build it into a RTF table.
-Then return it back to the regular expression to replace the search result.

Difficulty:
-The regular expression doesn’t pass the back referenced table fields to the next function.

What I am trying to do is extremely confusing for my level of experience.
How can I pass the relevant data to and from the regular expression?


Regular Expression for capturing the Table from the buffer.[PHP]
if(preg_match("/<table>(.*?)<\/table>/mi", $doc_buffer))
{
$start_delim = "<table>";
//$end_delim = "<\/table>";
$end_delim = "<#table>";
$content = preg_replace("/(.*)".preg_quote($start_delim)."(.*)".preg_quote($ end_delim)."(.*)/si", $this->buildTable("\\2"),$doc_buffer);
echo $content;
}[/PHP]


Table to RTF Processing
[PHP]function shapeTable($array)
{
$head = '\\par \n\\qc\n';
$row1 = '\\trowd \\trautofit1 \n\\intbl\n';
$row2 = '\\row} \n';
$tail = '\\pard}\n';
$colInfo = '';
$output = '';
$cell = '\\cell ';
//create column details

$i=0;
$colL = $array.count();
$rowL = $array[0].count();

for($i = 0; $i < $rowL; $i++)
{
$colInfo .= '\\cellx'.($i + 1 ).' \n';
}
//add together strings
$output .= $head;
for($i = 0; $i < $colL; $i++)
{
$output .= $row1.colInfo.'{';
for($j = 0; $j<$rowL; $j++)
{
$output .= $array[$i][$j].$cell;
}
$output .= '}{' . row1 . colInfo.$row2;
}
$output.=$tail;
return $output;
}[/PHP]