help with preg_match

marcnyc

Hello, I am having difficulties with preg_match.
I am trying to extract a form from a page whose output I grabbed with CURL.
I have this (from the PHP manual):

	if ( preg_match("/<form(.*?)<\/form>/mi", $data_calendar_form, $match) ) {
	   echo "A match was found.";
	} else {
	   echo "A match was not found.";
	}

I always get "a match was not found"...
I have added the m modified because the form is obviously over multiple lines.
I seem to be able to mach small single line tags such as <title> etc but when it comes to grabbing the form or even the entire page (in an attempt to troubleshoot I tried replacing the instances of 'form' with 'body' to see if I would get the entire page) I always get the same.

Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for looking

xblue

the s and m modifier seem to be a common source for confusion.

m (multiline) makes the ^ and $ match each line beginning and end. doesn't make much sense in your pattern since you don't use them.

s (dotall) makes . match line breaks, which may be what you need.

try and see where it gets you.

marcnyc

I tried replacing m with s but I get the same error.

xblue

no idea yet - I'd need to see more.

could you try to echo the string you are investing, and possible actually put that output into a dummy variable like

$data_calendar_form = "<<paste output in here>>";
if ( preg_match("/<form(.*?)<\/form>/si", $data_calendar_form, $match) ) { 
       echo "A match was found."; 
    } else { 
       echo "A match was not found."; 
    }

marcnyc

sure...

$data_calendar_form =<<<EOP

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>domain.com</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<link href="styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
</head>
<body>
<div id="site_header">
<!-- CONTAINS PAGE TOP CONTENT -->
	<div class="site_header_title">
	<h1><a href=http://domain.com>domain.com</a></h1>
	<center><i>domain.com<br>relational overkill</i></center>

</div>
<div class="site_header_body">
<!-- CONTAINS THE TOP CONTENT -->

	<div class="menubar">
	Logged in as: username<br>
	<a href="user.php">control panel</a><br>
	<a href=login.php?logout=1>logout</a>

	</div>



<!-- CONTAINS NAVIGATION BUTTONS, EXCEPT EXTRAS ABOVE -->
		<div class="menubar">
		<a href="releases.php">releases</a><br>
		<a href="calendar.php">calendar</a><br>
		<a href="dj.php">radio and clubs</a>
		</div>

	<div class="menubar">
	<a href="news.php">articles</a><br>
	<a href="zines.php">zines</a><br>
	<a href="faq/">faqs</a><br>
	<a href="search.php">search</a>
	</div>
	<div class="menubar">

	<a href="gear.php">gear</a><br>
	<a href="community.php">community</a><br>
	<a href="forum.php">forums</a>
	</div>
</div>
<br clear=all>
</div>
<div id="gutter"></div>

<div id="col1">

</div>
<div id="col2">
	<h2>event details</h2>

<form method=post action="/calendar.php" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input type=hidden name="go" value="1">
<input type=hidden name="event_id" value="0">
<input type=hidden name="action" value="edit_event">
<table width=100% cellpadding=1 cellspacing=2>
<tr><td colspan=2></td></tr>
	<tr>

	<td>event date</td>
	<td><select name="event_e_date_year">
 <option value="2004" selected>2004</option>
 <option value="2005">2005</option>
 <option value="2006">2006</option>
</select> - <select name="event_e_date_month">

 <option value="1">Jan</option>
 <option value="2">Feb</option>
 <option value="3">Mar</option>
 <option value="4">Apr</option>
 <option value="5">May</option>
 <option value="6">Jun</option>

 <option value="7">Jul</option>
 <option value="8">Aug</option>
 <option value="9">Sep</option>
 <option value="10">Oct</option>
 <option value="11">Nov</option>
 <option value="12" selected>Dec</option>

</select> - <select name="event_e_date_day">
 <option value="1">1</option>
 <option value="2">2</option>
 <option value="3" selected>3</option>
 <option value="4">4</option>
 <option value="5">5</option>

 <option value="6">6</option>
 <option value="7">7</option>
 <option value="8">8</option>
 <option value="9">9</option>
 <option value="10">10</option>
 <option value="11">11</option>

 <option value="12">12</option>
 <option value="13">13</option>
 <option value="14">14</option>
 <option value="15">15</option>
 <option value="16">16</option>
 <option value="17">17</option>

 <option value="18">18</option>
 <option value="19">19</option>
 <option value="20">20</option>
 <option value="21">21</option>
 <option value="22">22</option>
 <option value="23">23</option>

 <option value="24">24</option>
 <option value="25">25</option>
 <option value="26">26</option>
 <option value="27">27</option>
 <option value="28">28</option>
 <option value="29">29</option>

 <option value="30">30</option>
 <option value="31">31</option>
</select>		</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>

	<td>city</td>
	<td><input type=text name="event_city" value="" size="40" maxlen="120">(required)
	</td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td>event title</td>
	<td><input type=text name="event_title" value="" size="40" maxlen="120">(required)
	</td>
</tr>

<tr>
	<td valign=top>event details</td>
	<td><textarea name="event_data" cols="40" rows="20" wrap="soft"></textarea>(required)
<br clear=all><input type=checkbox name="event_data_nl2br"checked> newlines to &lt;br&gt;<br clear=all><b>allowed tags: &lt;b&gt &lt;p&gt &lt;i&gt &lt;blockquote&gt &lt;br&gt </b><br>URLs must be listed bare to be hyperlinked (i.e. "http://industrial.org") 
				so that it is clear where they go		</td>

</tr>
<tr>
	<td valign=top>status</td>
	<td><select name="event_status">
		<option value="1">active</option>
		<option value="2">inactive</option>
		<option value="99">flagged</option>

</select>(required)
		</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td valign=top></td>
		<td valign=top><input type=submit value="add event"></td>
	</tr>
</table>

<table cellpadding=3>
<tr><td colspan=2></td></tr>

<tr>
	<td colspan=2><b>allowed file types:  mp3 ogg jpg pdf txt</b>
<p>
			"inline" means place file in body of entry (note that images will be resized), "data" 
			means to place a link (with thumbnail) to the unaltered file at the end of the entry.</p>
			<p>
			Please be considerate of <b>industrial.org</b>'s bandwidth and disk space.  No deep linking 
			direct to files allowed, linking to the pages that reference them however is encouraged.  

			Please refer to the site <a href=news.php?t=16548>overview</a>

		for further particulars.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td>add new file</td>
	<td><input type=file name="file_0" value="" >(required)
	</td>
</tr>
<tr>

	<td valign=top>display type</td>
	<td><select name="file_0_type">
		<option value="data">data</option>
		<option value="inline" selected>inline</option>
</select>(required)
		</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>

	<td valign=top></td>
	<td valign=top><input type=submit value="update media"></td>
</tr>
</table>

</form>
</div>
<div id="footer">

<br clear=all>
<h3>Music is nourishment and noise is therapy. You can't have too much of either.</h3>
revving beneath the hood is <b>thingy engine 0.8</b> authored by moron (see <a href=http://codegrunt.com>codegrunt.com</a>)

</div>
</body>
</html>

EOP;

xblue

thanks for using heredoc syntax, I didn't think of quotes too much.

now, for me this seems to be working. if it is the same for you, the question is, what is different?

my next approach for debugging would be to cut down the pattern brutally to see if there's a match at all, and if so, slowly add to it again

// if ( preg_match("/<form(.*?)<\/form>/si", $data_calendar_form, $match) ) { 
 if ( preg_match("/<form/si", $data_calendar_form, $match) ) {
       echo "A match was found."; 
    } else { 
       echo "A match was not found."; 
    }

marcnyc

You are right. It does work. I am really confused now... I don't know what changed.