Using php to parse html document

Question

I am making a php app to parse HTML contents. I need to store a certain table column in php variables.

Here is my code:

$dom = new domDocument;

@$dom->loadHTML($html);
$dom->preserveWhiteSpace = false;
$tables = $dom->getElementsByTagName('table');

    $rows = $tables->item(0)->getElementsByTagName('tr');    
    $flag=0;
    foreach ($rows as $row)
    {
            if($flag==0) $flag=1;
            else
            {
                    $cols = $row->getElementsByTagName('td');
                    foreach ($cols as $col)
                    {
                        echo $col->nodeValue; //NEED HELP HERE
                    }
                    echo '<hr />';
            }
     }

In each row, first col is the KEY, second is the VALUE. How to create key value pairs from the table and store them as arrays in php.

I tried many things but everytime I am just getting DOMElement Object() as value.

Any help is deeply appreciated...

HTML as requested:

<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' style='border-collapse: collapse' width='780' height=100%>
<tr><td height=96% align=center><BR><BR>    
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body style="background:url(uptu_logo1.gif); background-repeat:no-repeat; background-position:center">
<p align="center" style="font-size:18px"><span style='font-size:20px'>this text is unimportant gibberish that is not required by my app</span><br/><span style='font-size:16px'>this text is unimportant gibberish that is not required by my app</span><br/><u>B.Tech. Third Year Result 2009-10. this text is unimportant gibberish that is not required by my app</u></p>
<br/>
<table align="center" border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" bordercolor="#E3DDD5" width="700" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 11px">
<tr>

<td width="50%"><b>Name:</b></td>
<td width="50%">John Fernandes          </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>Fathers Name:</b></td>
<td>Caith Fernandes                 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>Roll No:</b></td>
<td>0702410099</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><b>Status:</b></td>
<td>REGULAR   </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>Course/Branch:</b></td>
<td>B. Tech. </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>Institute Name</b></td>
<td>Imperial College of Science and Technology</td>

</tr>
</table>

My PHP code outputs:

Name:John Fernandes          <hr />
Fathers Name:Caith Fernandes                 <hr />
Roll No:0702410099<hr />
Status:REGULAR   <hr />
Course/Branch:B. Tech. Computer Science and EngineeringÂ (10)<hr />
Imperial College of Science and Technology<hr />

Also how to get rid of this silly Â ? I saw in the original HTML so I tried to sanitize using PHP function html_entity_decode() But its still there...

Shouldn't $dom = new domDocument; be $dom = new DOMDocument();? — gen_Eric
– gen_Eric, Commented Mar 2, 2011 at 17:23
@Rocket Class names in PHP are case-insensitive, and the brackets are optional on constructors without any arguments. — lonesomeday
– lonesomeday, Commented Mar 2, 2011 at 17:25
Can you include the HTML? Also, is cols = $row->getElementsByTagName('td'); always going to return just 2 columns? — McHerbie
– McHerbie, Commented Mar 2, 2011 at 17:25

McHerbie · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-02 17:32:21Z

2

What is the HTML that you are loading? I am assuming that it's something simple like so:

<table>
    <tr>
        <td>heading</td>
        <td>heading</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>key</td>
        <td>value</td>
    </tr>
</table>

Looks like the first tr is skipped (the headings), and then you have just 2 columns that you want to pair up as KEY => VALUE;

$cols = $row->getElementsByTagName('td');
$key = $cols->item(0)->nodeValue; // string(3) "key"
$val = $cols->item(1)->nodeValue; // string(5) "value"

The above code will return the items you want.

answered Mar 2, 2011 at 17:32

McHerbie

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1 Comment

lonesomeday Over a year ago

+1 This is my assumption too. With your example you could go for $cols = $row->childNodes though.

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