subtract string between two tags

[bilibytes]

Hi all!

i am trying to figure how to subtract some string which is between two other strings:

i have:
for(lots of times){
some unuseful text and tags...
<aloha some=text bbbbbbbbb>string</aloha>
some text and other tags that i dont need.
<aloha some=textDifferent bbbbbbbb> stringasdf</aloha>
}


so i noticed that the tags are partly similar.

it would then be great to say:

subtract( $content, startTag='bbb>', endTag='</aloha>')
storing the resulting strings into array $content

if it was a xml document i would parse it, but it is an html with some errors...


i have found this by googleing:

Answer: How do I extract all text between two keywords like start and end? contributed by Punto
($content) = $string =~ m/ start (.*) end /;
That will get the stuff between " start " and " end " into $content.

but this doesn't look to be much of PHP...

if you have any suggestion please let me know

thankyou

bili

[code green]

I would suggest using the explode() function.
Arrays have more powerful manipulation functions than strings.

[bilibytes]

thanks for replying, but the problem is that there are man params i would like to pass to the function, not just one as explode accepts.

explode($stringDelimiter, $string).
it is ok for $string like: asdf | asdf| dfaksdfjh | asdfasdfkjh | sdfg
then should be done explide(' | ', $string)

but what if you have : asdf <a first substring <b second substring ?c third substring <b fourth substring ?c

if i just want to get the values between <b and c? tags, i cant use explode() because it accepts only one delimiter...

if you have any other solution

thanyou very much

bili

[Atli]

if i just want to get the values between <b and c? tags, i cant use explode() because it accepts only one delimiter...

You can use it twice:

<?php
$str = "<a first <b second <c third <d fourth";
 
$leading = explode("<b", $str);
$following = explode("<c", $leading[1]);
 
$output = trim($following[1]);
 
// $output == second
?>
 

You get the idea?

Although, for complex strings you may be better of using regular expressions.
For example:

<?php
$str = "<a first <b second <c third <d fourth";
$regex = '/.*\<b (.*?) <c.*/i';
 
if(preg_match($regex, $str, $matches)) {
  echo $matches[1]; // == second
}
else {
  echo "No match";
}
?>
 

They are not the easiest thing to get used to, but once you do, they can save a lot of time.

[bilibytes]

ok, so the expert was right, i just didn't see the potential of his answer.

but i am trying to learn these regexp, hope i'll do it!

for all this, thank you very much!