Scanning for multiple entries in a table

jimmyoctane · 10-29-2003, 09:25 PM

I want to pull a web page into a string, and scan through to extract every URL embedded in an anchor tag into an array.

I figure the best way to do this is using a preg_match, but I'm not that great with regular expressions.

let's say I have a page like this:

PHP Code:


			
<html>

<body>

some text <a href=http://www.codenewbie.com>some link</a> .

<br><br>

here is another <a href="http://www.code400.com"> another link</a>.

<br><br>

and another link <a href="forum.php">forum</a>.

i can get all that into a string, but what would i use to extract only the links into an array? it would end up something like this:

PHP Code:


			
<?

$array[0]="http://www.codenewbie.com";

$array[1]="http://code400.com";

$array[2]="forum.php";

?>

any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance
Jimmy

Epsilon · 11-15-2003, 08:07 PM

There's always more than one way to do something, but here's a simple way to do it:

Code:

// Load the page into an array. The following will assign each line as an array element
$my_file = file("document.html");

// Now loop through the document lines
while ($file_line = each($my_file))
{
// Check to see if this line contains a link
   if (ereg("<a href=",$file_line[value]))
   {
      // If it does, get rid of the junk preceeding and following the URL
      str_replace('.*<a href=','',$file_line[value]);
      str_replace('</a>.*','',$file_line[value]);

      // Then push it onto a new array
      array_push($array,$file_line[value]);
   }
}

This will work but it probably isn't very thorough (since I wrote it in a hurry and I've been drinking tonight). It won't grab any more than one link from a single line, and it also will not work for links where the opening and closing tags are not on the same line, but maybe it will help to get you pointed in the right direction.

jimmyoctane · 11-15-2003, 08:19 PM

I appreciate the help. I will let you know where I can take it from here.

Hey! I see your in Vegas.....Dont you drink every nite.

Thanks
Jimmy