get meta description tag content...almost there...i think

[alwoodman]

I'm trying to extract the Meta Description content using REGEX but its giving me some trouble. It will find the content=" and echo that out but can;t seem to get it to get the end part of the tag which could include " /> or "> or "/> i have got ((\b\"(.)>\i*)) . I have been using this tool http://www.gskinner.com/RegExr/ which rocks!

 

<?php
function strip($file, $start_mark, $end_mark){

$start = strpos ($file, $start_mark);

$end = strpos ($file, $end_mark, $start);

$text = substr ($file, $start, $end - $start);

$text = str_replace ($start_mark, '', $text);

$text = str_replace ($end_mark, '', $text); 

return $text;
}


$file = file_get_contents($_GET['url']);

// get the description
$desc = preg_match('(\<(/?meta name="description"[^\>]+)\>)', $file, $fulldesc);
//echo "Match Content:<br/><br/>".$dstart[1]."<br/><br/>";
echo $fulldesc[1];

//get the title
$descstart = preg_match("((\bcontent=\"\i*))", $fulldesc[1], $dstart);
echo $dstart[1]."<br/>";

$descend = preg_match("((\b\"(.)>\i*))", $fulldesc[1], $dend);
echo $dend[1]."<br/>";

$description= strip($fulldesc[1], $dstart[1], $dend[1]);
echo "This is the match:<br/><br/> $description";

[.josh]

negative character classes are just like positive character classes: they only match alternatives or ranges for one character match.  So when you do [^\>]  you aren't matching anything that's not "\>"  you're matching anything that's not "\" or ">"

 

You can use lookahead for that, or you can look at it as "no matter what, the end of the tag is ">" so why do I need to even check whether it has a \ or / there or not?" and just do [^>]

[alwoodman]

thanks for that... i still couldn;t get it to work but i found this one...

 

(<meta[\s]+[^>]*?name[\s]?=[\s\"\']description[\s\"\']+content[\s]?=[\s\"\']+(.*?)[\"\']+.*?>)

 

which seems to work well.

 

I'm also trying to get the title tag contents which is working but it won;t find capital versions or with encoded HTML...this is what i have

 

$pagetitle = preg_match("(<title>(.*)<\/title>)", $file, $t);
$title = $t[1];

 

this is the tag it won't process

 

<TITLE>MySite-  bla bla &#038; reviews about stuff</TITLE>

 

thanks

 

Lee