Is this a good way to retrieve the title and description from the tags of an html page ?

<?php
require('../design/includes/application_top.php');

$banner_query = db_query("Select banners_id, banners_url from banners");
$num_rows = db_num_rows($banner_query);
$banners=db_fetch_array($banner_query);

$invalid_links="";
$invalid_error=false;

for ($i=0; $i<($num_rows); $i++){
	echo "<br>count: " . $i+1 . " --- url: " . $banners['banners_url'] ;
	$file =	file_get_contents($banners['banners_url']);

	updateRecord($i,$html);		
}

function updateRecord($i,$html){
echo"Count: " . $i+1 . "<br>" ;

	preg_match("'<title>.*?</title>'si",$html,$matches_title,1)
	preg_match("'<meta [^>]*?name=[^>]*?Description[^>]*? content=.*?>'si",$matches_description,$html,'1');

echo "Title:$matches_title[0]<br>Description=$matches_description[0]<br><br>"
}
?>

Example string to parse:
<html><head><title>Joes Site</title><meta name="description" content="joes really cool site"></head>

Thanks.

    Hello,

    Guys.. i tried the solution on that site and no luck..

    Can you please help me retrieve the title...

    updateRecord(1, "http://www.cnn.com");

    function updateRecord($i,$html){
    // does not work // preg_match("'<title>.?</title>'si",$html,$matches) ;
    // does not work // eregi("<title>(.    )</title>", $html, $matches);
    // does not work // preg_match_all('/<title.>(.+)<\/title.>/uis', $html, $matches);

    	$tags = get_meta_tags($html);		
	$title = $matches[0];
	$description = $tags['description'];				

	echo "title: $title<br>Description: $description<br><br>";
      function get_title($str)
{
    if (($pos_1 = strpos($str, '<title>')) === false) {
        return false;
    }
    if (($pos_2 = strpos($str, '</title>', $pos_1 + 1)) === false) {
        return false;
    }
    return strip_tags(substr($str, $pos_1, $pos_2 - $pos_1));
}

        i threw this together really quickly, seems to work...

        $html = file_get_contents("http://www.cnn.com/");

$matched = preg_match("/<title[^>]*>(.*?)<\/title>/is", $html, $match);

if($matched) {
  echo $match[1];
} else {
  echo "No title tag found";
}
          5 days later

          Hello,

          I tried the above solution but it doesn't work for all cases.
          for example, I used the above code:

          function getMetaTagsDescription($html){
          eregi('<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="([\"])">', $html, $matches);
          return $matches[1];
          }
          function getTitle($html){
          // eregi("<title>(.          )</title>", $html, $matches);
          }
          function get_title($str)
          {
          if (($pos_1 = strpos($str, '<title>')) === false) {
          return false;
          }
          if (($pos_2 = strpos($str, '</title>', $pos_1 + 1)) === false) {
          return false;
          }
          return strip_tags(substr($str, $pos_1, $pos_2 - $pos_1));
          }

          <title>Peet's Coffee &amp; Tea</title>

          <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
          <meta name="keywords" content="coffee, specialty, gourmet coffee, coffee beans,
          coffee blends, coffee gifts, tea gifts, tea, tea leaves and bags, herbal, green tea, black tea">

          and the title function (both from above) returned this: Peet's
          and the meta function returned just coffee, ...
          I dont' know why..
          thanks.

            i just tried my title function on that site, worked fine for me, even a little something to grab the description now that works..

            <?php
$html = file_get_contents("http://www.peets.com/shop/shop.asp");

$matched = preg_match("/<title[^>]*>(.*?)<\/title>/is", $html, $match);

if($matched) {
  echo $match[1];
} else {
  echo "No title tag found";
}

$matched = preg_match("/<meta name=.?keywords.? content=.?(.*?).?>/is", $html, $match);

if($matched) {
  echo $match[1];
} else {
  echo "No description";
}

?>

              I tested every solution you've been given (putting each into a separate function), and they all work perfectly on both the cnn site and the example you gave.

              $strings[] = file_get_contents('http://www.cnn.com/');

$strings[] = '<title>Peet\\'s Coffee & Tea</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> 
<meta name="keywords" content="coffee, specialty, gourmet coffee, coffee beans, 
coffee blends, coffee gifts, tea gifts, tea, tea leaves and bags, herbal, green tea, black tea">';

foreach ($strings as $string) {
    echo getMetaTagsDescription($string) . '<br />';
    echo get_the_title($string) . '<br />';
    echo get_the_title_and_keywords($string) . '<br />';
    echo getTitle($string) . '<br />';
    echo get_title($string) . '<br />';
}

function getMetaTagsDescription($html)
{ 
    eregi('<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="([^\\"]*)">', $html, $matches); 
    return $matches[1]; 
} 

function get_the_title($html)
{
    $matched = preg_match("/<title[^>]*>(.*?)<\/title>/is", $html, $match);
    if($matched) {
        return $match[1];
    } else {
        return "No title tag found";
    }
}

function get_the_title_and_keywords($html)
{
    $matched = preg_match("/<title[^>]*>(.*?)<\/title>/is", $html, $match);
    if($matched) {
        $title = $match[1];
    } else {
        $title = "No title tag found";
    }
    $matched = preg_match("/<meta name=.?keywords.? content=.?(.*?).?>/is", $html, $match);
    if($matched) {
        $keywords = $match[1];
    } else {
        $keywords = "No description";
    }
    return $title . '<br />' . $keywords;
}

function getTitle($html) 
{ 
     eregi("<title>(.*)</title>", $html, $matches);
     return $matches[1]; 
}

function get_title($str) 
{ 
    if (($pos_1 = strpos($str, '<title>')) === false) { 
        return false; 
    } 
    if (($pos_2 = strpos($str, '</title>', $pos_1)) === false) { 
        return false; 
    } 
    return strip_tags(substr($str, $pos_1, $pos_2 - $pos_1)); 
} 

/** Output:

CNN.com
CNN.com
No description
CNN.com
CNN.com
coffee, specialty, gourmet coffee, coffee beans, coffee blends, coffee gifts, tea gifts, tea, tea leaves and bags, herbal, green tea, black tea
Peet's Coffee & Tea
Peet's Coffee & Tea
coffee, specialty, gourmet coffee, coffee beans, coffee blends, coffee gifts, tea gifts, tea, tea leaves and bags, herbal, green tea, black tea
Peet's Coffee & Tea
Peet's Coffee & Tea

**/

                Hello,

                I want to apologize to the entire community for having to had wasted your time.. The solutions did work.. but my problem was the output... I was taking the output an putting it into a form element (<input type=text value=$getTitle>) and that was not displaying all of it.. I swithced over to another html form element Textarea and found that it works.. I leaned of my dumb mistake when i did a straight ouptput and it showed me that the error lay in the html form element.

                Once again, I apologize and am greateful for all your help.
                THanks.

                  14 days later

                  $matched = preg_match("/<applet[>]code=\"(.?).class[>]*>/is", $html, $match);

                  if($matched) {
                  echo $match[1].".class";
                  } else {
                  echo "No title tag found";
                  }

                  Is there a way for me to determine if the code= has something like "http://www.blach.com" ?

                  Thanks.

                    Write a Reply...