Simple Regex problem driving me mad

[paulious]

Hi everyone, i have just started using regex and i can't see where i am going wrong.  I want to use it to search for this string within a website

 

Inspection number</th>
<td>327355</td>

 

it should look for inspection number and continue along until the </td> tag and return the number, i tried something simple like this:

 

$res = preg_match(
    "Inspection number.........[0-9]${6}"

 

but it complains  -  preg_match() [function.preg-match]: Delimiter must not be alphanumeric or backslash in /home/paulious/public_html/email-extractor.php on line 38

 

i also tried:

 

"Inspection number</th><td>(*.)</td>", 

with and without the escape character \ infront of /

 

 

It is only the $pattern parameter that is confusing me the rest i have working fine. Thanks in advance

 

[MadTechie]

try this

$text = 'Inspection number</th>
<td>327355</td>';
if (preg_match('%Inspection number</th>\s*<td>(\d*?)</td>%sm', $text, $regs)) {
$result = $regs[1];
}else{
$result = 'N/A';
}
echo $result;

 

EDIT:

Delimiter must not be alphanumeric or backslash

means you didn't add the delimiters (in my example i used %)

so this would also be okay

"\Inspection number</th><td>(*.?)</td>\", 

[paulious]

Thank you that worked perfectly the only change i made was not to define $text as you have but i used

 

$text = file_get_contents($_REQUEST['url']);

 

basically reading in all of the source code of the specified url

 

Please could you explain how your $pattern string works? as i will need to understand it to scan for other similar matches

[MadTechie]

Please could you explain how your $pattern string works? as i will need to understand it to scan for other similar matches

 

Sure

%Inspection number</th>\s*<td>(\d*)</td>%sm

Inspection number</th> = this is a literally a match for match (Inspection number</th> matches Inspection number</th>)

\s* = matches Zero or more white spaces (ie spaces, returns, tabs etc)

<td> = literal match (matches <td>)

(\d*)</td> = (\d*) =Captures and matches \d digits (numbers) Until it finds</td> = literal match (matches </td>)

I hope that makes sense

 

Summary

\d = digits

\s = white spaces

* = find zero or more