extract some html with preg_match

tags php html arrays preg-match extract

i use preg_mach for extract some html ( i try to use DOMDocument but i had some problem with new line ) any way ... that's my code ..

1.html

<body>


            <!-- icon and title -->
            <div class="smallfont">
                <img class="inlineimg" src="images/icons/icon1.gif" alt="" border="0" />
                <strong>qrtoobah 3nwan</strong>
            </div>
            <hr size="1" style="color:#CCCCCC; background-color:#CCCCCC" />
            <!-- / icon and title -->


        <div id="post_message_14142536">

            <font size="7"><font color="red">msaha 700</font></font><br />
<font size="7"><font color="red">shamali 20</font></font><br />
<font size="7"><font color="red"> 1700 almetr</font></font><br />
<font size="7"><font color="#ff0000">sooom bs</font></font><br />
<font size="7"><font color="#ff0000">albee3 qreeb</font></font>
        </div>
        <!-- message -->


</body>

extract.php

<?php 
$html = file_get_contents("1.html");
$pattern = '/<([!]+)([^]+).*>([^]+)(message\ \-\-\>)/';
   preg_match($pattern, $html, $matches);
 print_r($matches);


?>

i want to get any thing between )blablabla(... but i get that array :

Array ( [0] => [1] => ! [2] => -- [3] => message --> )

Answers

Use strpos to find first tag position. Then find ending tag also with strpos. I mean - if u know from where to what you are looking for and they are unique.. so what matter in preg_* functions?

So i guess something like this will work fine (I make code clear as possible for understanding my idea in step-by-step actions):

$tag_begin = "<!-- icon and title -->";
$tag_end   = "<!-- message -->";
$begin     = strpos($tag_begin,$text)+strlen($tag_begin);
$end       = strpos($tag_end,$text);
$result    = substr($begin,$end, $text);

Also u can do exactly the same if u want find and store all structures between opening  and closing . Only change u must do - first find with preg_match all opening structures names. For example:

$result_cnt = preg_match_all('#<!-- [^/].*-->#', $text , $openings);

// Output for your example HTML is:
$openings = 
array (
  0 => 
  array (
    0 => '<!-- icon and title -->',
    1 => '<!-- message -->',
  ),
)

After that one-loop for $openings and find with code above all needed. just adding to openings closing "/" chacter in right place.