Looking for quick specific help, regular expressions.

[somedude]

I know nothing about PHP, which is why I come here. Any help would be appreciated. What I want to do is:

Have a PHP script automatically go to http://users.ign.com/about/Tal-IGN (fopen?), for example, and pull out the number next to "Total # Posts" (692,472) and save it as a variable that I could then manipulate and display (reg exp?).

Please any help quickly, thanks very much.

[pyro]

Ugly as sin, but this type of thing ususally is:

<?PHP
$file = file_get_contents('http://users.ign.com/about/Tal-IGN');
preg_match('/Total&nbsp;#&nbsp;Posts:(?:.*?)(?:<td[^>]*>)([\\d,]*?) /s', $file, $matches);
$num_posts = $matches[1];
echo $num_posts;
?>

[somedude]

Thanks so much! Except when I preview it I get:

]>)([\d,]?) /s', $file, $matches); $num_posts = $matches[1]; echo $num_posts; ?>

even if i add in cheap basic html. Why is that displaying instead of just the number?

Sorry bout bothering you for free help.

[pyro]

Are you sure you copied it out exactly as it is? I just tried the code again, and it's working fine.

[somedude]

edit: Nevermind, installation problems, thanks alot!

[pyro]

You bet. Glad it's working.

[somedude]

One more question:

If I have an HTML form in another html file with the target of that php file, and a text field that's name is "name", shouldn't this return the number for the url with that name at the end? I just get blank.

<?PHP
$file = file_get_contents('http://users.ign.com/about/$name');
preg_match('/Total&nbsp;#&nbsp;Posts🙁?:.?)(?:<td[^>]>)([\d,]*?) /s', $file, $matches);
$num_posts = $matches[1];
echo $num_posts;
?>

Thanks again.

EDIT: will that only work if register globals is on?

EDIT: Got it to recognize with import_request_variables but I still don't know how to incorporate it into the "file_get_contents('http://users.ign.com/about/$name');" line.

Please help? :p

[pyro]

Try one of these:

file_get_contents('http://users.ign.com/about/'.$name);

file_get_contents("http://users.ign.com/about/$name");

PHP doesn't interpolate the string for variables if it is in a single quote. It will with a double quote.

Also, yes, it will only work with register_globals set to on, as it looks like you have it. Try this (assuming your are using the post method with the form)

$name = $_POST['name'];

[somedude]

AAAAAAACK one final question. I'm sorry to keep asking.

Ideally, I'd like to have a text area in my form and seperate the values into variables by the "/n" in between each value. Is this very difficult? Sortof the same idea as finding that on the web page but in a string?

[pyro]

$array = explode('\n', $string);