As far as I can tell, your problem lies in [^href]*. That will match any characters other than h, r, e or f, not anything other than the string href. Consider replacing it with [^>]*?. The ? makes it non-greedy so it will stop as soon as it can (when it matches the first href) rather than as late as it can (when it matches a >) --- Simon Welsh Sent from my phone, excuse the brevity On 19/02/2011, at 10:36, Tommy Pham <tommyhp2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi folks, > > This is not directly relating to PHP but it's Friday so I'm gonna give > it a shot :). Would someone please help me figure out why my regex > pattern doesn't work. Below is the code and sample data: > > $html = <<<HTML > <li class="small tab "><a class="y-mast-link images" > href="http://images.search.yahoo.com/images"; > data-b="http://www.yahoo.com";><span class="tab-cover y-mast-bg-hide" > style="padding-left:0em;padding-right:0em;">Images</span></a></li> > <li class="small tab "><a class="y-mast-link video" > href="http://video.search.yahoo.com/video"; > data-b="http://www.yahoo.com";><span class="tab-cover y-mast-bg-hide" > style="padding-left:0em;padding-right:0em;">Video</span></a></li> > <li class="small tab "><a class="y-mast-link local" > href="http://local.yahoo.com/results"; > data-b="http://www.yahoo.com";><span class="tab-cover y-mast-bg-hide" > style="padding-left:0em;padding-right:0em;">Local</span></a></li> > <li class="small tab "><a class="y-mast-link shopping" > href="http://shopping.yahoo.com/search"; > data-b="http://www.yahoo.com";><span class="tab-cover y-mast-bg-hide" > style="padding-left:0em;padding-right:0em;">Shopping</span></a></li> > <li class="small lasttab more-tab "><a class="y-mast-link more" > href="http://tools.search.yahoo.com/about/forsearchers.html"; ><span > class="tab-cover y-mast-bg-hide">More</span><span > class="y-fp-pg-controls arrow"></span></a></li> > HTML; > > $pattern = '%<a\s[^href]*href\s*=\s*[\'|"]?([^\'|"|#]+)[\'|"]?\s*[^>]*>(.*)?</a>%im'; > preg_match_all($pattern, $html, $matches); > > The only matches I got is: > > Match 1 of 1: <a class="y-mast-link local" > href="http://local.yahoo.com/results"; > data-b="http://www.yahoo.com";><span class="tab-cover y-mast-bg-hide" > style="padding-left:0em;padding-right:0em;">Local</span></a> > > Group 1: http://local.yahoo.com/results > > Group 2: <span class="tab-cover y-mast-bg-hide" > style="padding-left:0em;padding-right:0em;">Local</span> > > The pattern I made was to work in cases where the page is > non-compliant to any of standard W3. > > Thanks, > Tommy > > -- > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php >
