Regular expressions

[s0crates9]

Iam trying to isolate html tags, in particular link tags. I've been reading up on preg_match and regular expressions, however I am unsure of how to get a link pattern to be echoed to screen in the way I want it. For example, a typical link:
<a href="blah.com" class="myclass"><img src="image.jpg" alt="my image"></a>

How do I create a regular expression that will echo the entire link to screen as code and not as an actual link or linked image?

I appreciate feedback.

 

[DRJ478]

Just for clarity:
Regular expressions do not echo anything. They match patterns. Use the regex to extract the pattern and then echo it to the screen.

Suggestions:

$pattern = "/<a.*</a>/Uis";
preg_match_all($pattern, $subject, $matches);

Inspect the content of $matches and use htmlentities() when you output the match.

 

[s0crates9]

Hi DRJ478,

I am getting this error running the pattern above:

Warning: preg_match_all() [function.preg-match-all]: Unknown modifier 'a' in c:\documents and settings\test.test\Desktop\Testing\titlegrab.php on line 40

This is the code segment I am working with:

<?
function return_a($url)  {
		 $array = file ($url);
		  for ($i = 0; $i < count($array); $i++){
				if (preg_match_all("/<a.*</a>/Uis",$array[$i], $tag_contents)) {
				echo $atag = "&lt;".substr($tag_contents[0], 1, strlen($tag_contents[0]))."<br>";
				//echo"<pre>";print_r($tag_contents);echo"</pre>";
				//$atag = strip_tags($atag);
				}
		  }
$new_atag = return_a($url[$i]);
echo $new_atag;
?>

Thanks for any help on this!

 

[s0crates9]

I figured out that this pattern works, but not fully:

"/<a.*<\/a>/Uis"

but the output is as follows:

<a href="siteindex.asp" class="footerlinks">site index
<a href="services.asp" onMouseOver="imgAct('img1'); window.status='Services'; return true" onMouseOut="imgInact('img1'); window.status=''; return true">

And for some reason it does not place place image tag source, just empty picture boxes because the images are not available locally, and does not close with a trailing ?</a>".

Thanks!

 

[DRJ478]

I am still kind of in the dark as what you want to achieve.
Could we have an example of the HTML that is being processed and what the desired output is.

 

[s0crates9]

well I guess what I can do is use the code to explain further, there really is no "HTML" involved...
Here is what will run and give you my issue:

<?
$url=array("software is nice,<a href=blah.com target=_blank>See?</a>","What about the crazy hogs that took over? Did you see <a onMouseOver=\"blink()\" href=\"domain.com\">it</a>?");
function return_a($url){
          for ($i = 0; $i < count($url); $i++){
                if (preg_match_all("/<a.*<\/a>/Uis",$url[$i], $tag_contents)) {
                echo $atag = "&lt;".substr($tag_contents[0], 1, strlen($tag_contents[0]))."<br>";
                }
          }
        }
for ($i = 0; $i < count($url); $i++){
$new_atag = return_a($url[$i]);
echo $new_atag;
}
?>

I need something that will get link tags and spit them as well as any source or text within them such as: <a href="mysite.com"><img src="hle.jpg"></a> or <a target="parent" href="smoke.com">Text here</a>.

Thanks!