need help stripping HTML using ereg_replace

[ihcra]

i want to take

<dl class="overduelist">
	<dt class="overdue">
		<span class="ug6">79 days overdue</span>
	</dt>
	<dd>
		<a href="./viewtask.php?dti=2">
			<span class="ug6">Repair Faucets</span>
		</a>
	</dd>
	<dt class="overdue">
		<span class="ug6">9 days overdue</span>
	</dt>
	<dd>
		<a href="./viewtask.php?dti=8">
			<span class="ug6">new project</span>
		</a>
	</dd>
	<dt class="overdue">
		<span class="ug6">9 days overdue</span>
	</dt>
	<dd>
		<a href="./viewtask.php?dti=3">
			<span class="ug6">Tiling</span>
		</a>
	</dd>
</dl>

as a stirng and output a new string something like:

79 days overdue, Repair Faucets
9 days overdue, new project
9 days overdue, Tiling

i have managed to do so using 3 separate eregi_replace commands each acting on the output of the former and this works

however im sure there mut be a more elegant solution to it than

$text = eregi_replace("(<dl class=\"overduelist\">)|(</dl>)|(<dt class=\"overdue\"><span class=\"ug6\">)","", $HTMLlist);
$text2 = eregi_replace("(</span></a></dd>\n)", "\n", $text);
$text3 = eregi_replace("(</span></dt>\n\t<dd><a href=\"./viewtask.php\?dti=[0-9]\"><span class=\"ug6\">)","|", $text2);

specifically, i suppose, in making it one command and using backreferencing but also simplifying some of the internal patterns

any ideas appreciated

[LordShryku]

There is [man]strip_tags[/man]....

[ihcra]

thanks - i discovered that after i posted here

what that allows me is to get rid of the tags and if in this case the htl is suitable formatted i can run an explode on it to get tabs and carriage returns to behave properly

i should really learn regular expressions properly for a more generic response

does anyone know of a good tutorial in this?

cheers again lord

[ShawnK]

I found this great tutorial earlier and it covers everything in php. here is the section on reg expressions: http://www.hudzilla.org/php/4_8_0.php