[RESOLVED] Need expression help with preg_match_all()

[rebelo]

Firstly I will admit I suck at expressions and any help someone can give will be wholely appreciated. I'm going to provide as much information as I can think would be useful here so hopefully some kind person who knows expressions well can guide me.

I am writing a parser which grabs the contents of a certain HTML file (passed as an argument on the command line) and then loads up the HTML file, parses through it to find each of the relevant chunks of data and then will grab each of those chunks and grab all of the relevant variables from within each and load it all into a big happy multidimensional associative array.

The contents of the file in question will vary, but the layout will be static. FYI, the contents of the file are skills of players in a game of virtual soccer team management played online. First, I need the parser function to match each chunk of player code (they are all identical, so it should be possible) and then as it grabs each chunk, it would be ideal if there is a way to identify each part of that code which is a value.

You can view the entire HTML file for starters at the following URL:

http://onions.dyndns.org:8080/~justin/players.asp.html

If you first view the page as html, you can see that it contains information about several players. Viewing the source, I have identified each player is contained within a table which looks like the code chunk quoted below.

The data I need to pull out are the playerID (the easy part) and then each of the player's attributes listed in the nested table (such as Passing, Winger, Scoring, etc).

This is really complicated and I'm hoping that what I want to do is even possible. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

			 <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0">

					 <TR><TD valign="top"><div class="back">
<div class="back2"><img src="images/dresses/back/old_dressBack08.gif" title="">
<div class="number3"><img src="images/dresses/back/b_2_c.gif" title="">
</div>
</div>
</div>
&nbsp;</TD>

			<TD valign="top">


			<A HREF="playerDetails.asp?playerID=15964004">Jamie  Reay</A> 
			<A HREF="bookmarks.asp?action=AddConfirm&BookmarkTypeID=2&ObjectID=15964004"><IMG SRC="images/bookmark_16x16.gif" WIDTH="16" HEIGHT="16" BORDER="0" TITLE="Add this player to your bookmarks"></A>
			 <BR>
				TSI = 590 , 29 years, <A HREF="gameRules.asp?find=labels&amp;lt=skillshort&amp;ll=7#skillshort" STYLE="{text-decoration: none; }">solid</A> form<BR>
				Has <A HREF="gameRules.asp?find=labels&amp;lt=skill&amp;ll=6#skill" STYLE="{text-decoration: none; }">passable</A> experience and <A HREF="gameRules.asp?find=labels&amp;lt=skillshort&amp;ll=3#skillshort" STYLE="{text-decoration: none; }">poor</A> leadership abilities [Powerful]<BR>

			<BR>

			</TD></TR></TABLE>

					<TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0">
					<TR>
						<TD><B>Stamina:</B>&nbsp; </TD><TD><A HREF="gameRules.asp?find=labels&amp;lt=skill&amp;ll=3#skill" STYLE="{text-decoration: none; }">poor</A></TD>
						<TD><B>&nbsp; &nbsp; Keeper:&nbsp; </B></TD><TD><A HREF="gameRules.asp?find=labels&amp;lt=skill&amp;ll=2#skill" STYLE="{text-decoration: none; }">wretched</A></TD>

					</TR>
					<TR>
						<TD><B>Playmaking:&nbsp; </B></TD><TD><A HREF="gameRules.asp?find=labels&amp;lt=skill&amp;ll=4#skill" STYLE="{text-decoration: none; }">weak</A></TD>
						<TD><B>&nbsp; &nbsp; Passing:&nbsp; </B></TD><TD><A HREF="gameRules.asp?find=labels&amp;lt=skill&amp;ll=3#skill" STYLE="{text-decoration: none; }">poor</A></TD>
					</TR>

					<TR>
						<TD><B>Winger:&nbsp; </B></TD><TD><A HREF="gameRules.asp?find=labels&amp;lt=skill&amp;ll=4#skill" STYLE="{text-decoration: none; }">weak</A></TD>
						<TD><B>&nbsp; &nbsp; Defending:&nbsp; </B></TD><TD><A HREF="gameRules.asp?find=labels&amp;lt=skill&amp;ll=5#skill" STYLE="{text-decoration: none; }">inadequate</A></TD>
					</TR>
					<TR>

						<TD><B>Scoring:&nbsp; </B></TD><TD><A HREF="gameRules.asp?find=labels&amp;lt=skill&amp;ll=7#skill" STYLE="{text-decoration: none; }">solid</A></TD>
						<TD><B>&nbsp; &nbsp; Set Pieces:&nbsp; </B></TD><TD><A HREF="gameRules.asp?find=labels&amp;lt=skill&amp;ll=2#skill" STYLE="{text-decoration: none; }">wretched</A></TD>
					</TR>
					</TABLE>

[toplay]

Here's an example. It's not the most elegant but it'll work. For the life of me, I can't remember how to specify repeat the pattern. I tried {8} and used (?🙂 but it didn't work. So, for now I just copied the pattern 8 times (for the player attributes). Maybe someone else can make it better. I'm tired from lack of sleep.

$html = '...HTML from source page goes here...';

$matches = array();
$nbr_attrib = (int) 8;
$pattern = '/playerDetails\.asp\?playerID=.*?>(.*?)<\/A>.*?<TD><B>(.*?):.*?">(.*?)<\/A>.*?<TD><B>(.*?):.*?">(.*?)<\/A>.*?<TD><B>(.*?):.*?">(.*?)<\/A>.*?<TD><B>(.*?):.*?">(.*?)<\/A>.*?<TD><B>(.*?):.*?">(.*?)<\/A>.*?<TD><B>(.*?):.*?">(.*?)<\/A>.*?<TD><B>(.*?):.*?">(.*?)<\/A>.*?<TD><B>(.*?):.*?">(.*?)<\/A>/si';

$cnt = preg_match_all($pattern, $html, $matches);
for ($i = 0; $i < $cnt; $i++) {

echo 'Player name: ', $matches[1][$i], '<br>';
for ($j = 2, $max = $nbr_attrib * 2; $j <= $max; $j+=2) {
    $matches[$j][$i] = trim(html_entity_decode(strip_tags($matches[$j][$i])), " \xA0\t\n\r\0\x0B"); // There's a space before \xA0
    echo $matches[$j][$i], ': ', $matches[$j+1][$i], '<br>';
}
echo '<br>';
}

If you put the source code from: http://onions.dyndns.org:8080/~justin/players.asp.html into $html and run the above code, it would output something like this:

Player name: Cliff Keefe
Stamina: excellent
Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak
Passing: inadequate
Winger: wretched
Defending: poor
Scoring: formidable
Set Pieces: wretched

Player name: Jamie Reay
Stamina: poor
Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: weak
Passing: poor
Winger: weak
Defending: inadequate
Scoring: solid
Set Pieces: wretched

Player name: Huey Garvey
Stamina: excellent
Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: excellent
Passing: weak
Winger: formidable
Defending: wretched
Scoring: weak
Set Pieces: disastrous

Player name: José Granado
Stamina: passable
Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak
Passing: weak
Winger: world class
Defending: wretched
Scoring: wretched
Set Pieces: passable

etc., etc., etc. for 25 names with attributes

[rebelo]

Incredible! The force is strong with this one.

Thanks for your assistance, toplay. I really want to pick up an oreilly book about regex because I really have a tough time comprehending it, even with web tutorials. I just find good old books easier to learn from.

Well, that did pretty much everything I need. Let there be orange wedges for all of your women.

[toplay]

Great.

A tool that immensely helps in creating expressions and which I think is well worth the price of $30 USD is:
http://www.regexbuddy.com

What does this mean: "Let there be orange wedges for all of your women."?

.

[rebelo]

That would be handy if I used windows, but I do not. Still, I'd much sooner invest $30USD into a good hardcopy O'Reilly book and have the knowledge forever than mess around with software.

Let there be oranges wedges for all your women is just a silly phrase which basically means may good things come your way. I believe it was started some time ago by an american baseball sports commentator who came up with the most bizarre sayings. Orange wedges are, of course, oranges sliced into wedge shaped sections and are a very popular staple at young kids' sporting events.

[toplay]

Regexbuddy is also available for Linux (and not just Windows). I have Mastering Regular Expressions by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl (O'Reilly) but I find it hard to learn from. IMO, regex has to be tried out. This software does sooooo much. Don't under estimate it's value. I learned more from the software than the book. The tutorial that comes with the software is better than the book in some regards.

This site will give you the style in which the tutorial is written in:
http://www.regularexpressions.info/tutorial.html

Thanks for explaining about the funny quote about the oranges.

🙂