Parse HTML content into an associative array?

Question

I have a string like this:

$str = "<div>
            <b>
                <label>Company-Name : Anything</label>
            </b>
        </div>
        <div>
            <b>
                <label>First-Name : Alex</label>
            </b>
        </div>
        <div>
            <b>
                <label>Cell-Phone : 035123913</label>
            </b>
        </div>";

Now I want this array:

$arr = array ("Company-Name"=>"Anything",
              "First-Name"=>"Alex",
              "Cell-Phone"=>"035123913");

How can I do that?

As far as I realized by searching, there is a function which removes all html tags:

strip_tags($str);

I think the above function is a clue. Also there is two characters which are constant: \n and :. I think we can use them to explode the result. (however I'm not sure, maybe I'm wrong)

Progrock · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-05 10:50:48Z

I like the strip_tags approach, but here is a regex take:

$str = "<div>
            <b>
                <label>Company-Name : Anything</label>
            </b>
        </div>
        <div>
            <b>
                <label>First-Name : Alex</label>
            </b>
        </div>
        <div>
            <b>
                <label>Cell-Phone : 035123913</label>
            </b>
        </div>";

preg_match_all('/<label>(.*)<\/label>/', $str, $matches);
foreach($matches[1] as $match) {
    $parts = explode(':', $match);
    $results[trim($parts[0])] = trim($parts[1]);
}
var_dump($results);

Output:

array (size=3)
  'Company-Name' => string 'Anything' (length=8)
  'First-Name' => string 'Alex' (length=4)
  'Cell-Phone' => string '035123913' (length=9)

Praveen Kumar Purushothaman · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-05 10:36:23Z

2

You can use a double explode.

$str = explode(PHP_EOL, $str);
$arr = array();
foreach ($str as $val) {
  $arr[] = explode(":", $val);
}

You might need to trim() in all the cases I guess.

answered Feb 5, 2016 at 10:36

Praveen Kumar Purushothaman

167k27 gold badges215 silver badges261 bronze badges

10 Comments

stack Over a year ago

I think you have to remove all html tags. Here is the output of your code 3v4l.org/dqrCg

stack Over a year ago

Yes I can use it, thank you, I just mentioned to that point because I wanted when other users use your code, then see a desired result. anyway ok thanks again. +1

Praveen Kumar Purushothaman Over a year ago

@stack Once you get it right, feel free to edit my answer bro! :) You have all rights! :)

stack Over a year ago

To be honest, that's scare for me to edit your answer, who has 80K rep :) .

Praveen Kumar Purushothaman Over a year ago

@stack I just gave you the full freedom. Doesn't mean if I have 80k Rep, I am a master! And those with less are not! :)

|

fusion3k · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-05 10:58:10Z

A shorter way to obtain your desired result (without stripping tags), is to use a regular expression:

preg_match_all( "{<label>([^:]+) +: +([^<]+)</label>}", $str, $matches );

By this way, in $matches array, you will obtain this:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => <label>Company-Name : Anything</label>
            [1] => <label>First-Name : Alex</label>
            [2] => <label>Cell-Phone : 035123913</label>
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [0] => Company-Name
            [1] => First-Name
            [2] => Cell-Phone
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [0] => Anything
            [1] => Alex
            [2] => 035123913
        )

)

ArrowHead · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-05 10:58:54Z

This solves the problem, built upon the previous answer by @Praveen Kumar

$str = explode(PHP_EOL, $str);
$arr = [];

foreach ($str as $val) {
    $pos=strpos($val, ":");
    if ($pos !== false)
    {
        $arr[] = explode(":", strip_tags($val));
    }

}

foreach($arr as $key=>$value){
   $final_array[trim($value[0])] = trim($value[1]);
}

var_dump($final_array);

Output

   array (size=3)
  'Company-Name' => string 'Anything' (length=8)
  'First-Name' => string 'Alex' (length=4)
  'Cell-Phone' => string '035123913' (length=9)

mickmackusa · Accepted Answer · 2024-09-30 23:50:28Z

When your task involves parsing HTML, use a legitimate HTML parser as much as possible to avoid unintended matches and breakages.

Once the label nodes are isolated, split on the delimiter and declare the associative elements in the result array from the two halves.

Code: (Demo)

$html = <<<HTML
<div>
    <b>
        <label>Company-Name : Anything</label>
    </b>
</div>
<div>
    <b>
        <label>First-Name : Alex</label>
    </b>
</div>
<div>
    <b>
        <label>Cell-Phone : 035123913</label>
    </b>
</div>
HTML;

$dom = new DOMDocument();
$dom->loadHTML($html);
$result = [];
foreach ($dom->getElementsByTagName('label') as $label) {
    [$k, $result[$k]] = explode(' : ', $label->nodeValue, 2);
}
var_export($result);

Output:

array (
  'Company-Name' => 'Anything',
  'First-Name' => 'Alex',
  'Cell-Phone' => '035123913',
)

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