Need to reformat content extracted from external html page

spiritmaker

Hi,

When I output the extracted content (a html table from an external page) the table is too wide to fit into the design of my site. Is there a way I can tell php to look for width=value and ignore those?

Any help appreciated!

etully

First, examine the HTML that you are receiving to see what format the width=value phrase is in. For example, it might be:

width="123"
width = "123"
width=123
width="75%"
width=75%

Once you know the format, then you can build a regular expression to find that string. Once you find it, then you can either alter it (ereg_replace) or eliminate the string alltogether.

So tell us what the string looks like. Then tell us whether you want the width tag eliminated or changed.

spiritmaker

Hi,

After looking into it, I decided to use: preg_replace.

Here is the result:

Source
http://www.gov.yk.ca/yxy/arrivals.htm

Script output
http://www.yukoninfo.com/whitehorseairport.php

I ended up having to replace 12 items to make it look the way I wanted it to. One question if I want to remove something I simply replaced it with nothing, is this the correct way of doing it?

Thanks!

etully

Yes, I think you've got it.

preg_replace (and ereg_replace) are used when the string you're replacing can vary and you need regular expressions to match either "width=46" or "width=123". str_replace is used when the string you want to replace is always the same, for example, "Brain Fart" always gets replaced with "Big Goofball".

preg_replace (and ereg_replace) are slower than str_replace so only use them when you have to.

barand

So, (I haven't got round to learning regex yet), are you saying ereg_replace() is identical to str_replace() ?

etully

Sorry, I misspoke. I meant to say that str_replace (and not ereg_replace) is for static strings and is therefore faster.

ereg_replace and preg_replace are both for replacing regular expressions and are slower than str_replace.

ereg_replace and preg_replace are similar. preg_replace uses the Perl regular expression syntax and is usually faster than ereg_replace.