Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '=' in ...

[jskarr1982]

Hello,

 

My code:

<?php
$file = file_get_contents("https://www.amark.com/spotpricesst.asp");
$do = preg_match('/<a href="" onClick="NewWindow2('/includes/viewproduct.asp?ID=10','SpotPrice_INFO',610,300,'0','yes','center'); return false;">1 oz<\/a><\/nobr><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/td><td class="spotsborderbottom"><table cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 border=0><tr><td width=100%><\/td><td class="spotsnoborder">(.*)<\/td>/', $file, $matches);
if ($do) {
     print $matches['1'];

} else {
    echo "No Price";
}
?>

 

Is to pull the price of gold from this website, however the coding I am using includes an =.  Is there a way to go around this?

 

I receive the following error:

 

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '=' in /home1/northes3/public_html/crawl/index.php on line 3

 

Thank you!

 

[ManiacDan]

Look at your code.  See how the coloring is wrong?  That's because your string is wrong.

 

If you use single-quotes ( ' ) to enclose a string, any single quotes inside the string must be escaped: ( \' )

 

-Dan

[jskarr1982]

Dan, I am a beginner in this so I thank you for letting me know about that.  My new code is now:

<?php
$file = file_get_contents("https://www.amark.com/spotpricesst.asp");
$do = preg_match('/<a href="" onClick="NewWindow2(\'/includes/viewproduct.asp?ID=10\',\'SpotPrice_INFO\',610,300,\'0\',\'yes\',\'center\'); return false;">1 oz<\/a><\/nobr><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/td><td class="spotsborderbottom"><table cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 border=0><tr><td width=100%><\/td><td class="spotsnoborder">(.*)<\/td>/', $file, $matches);
if ($do) {
     print $matches['1'];

} else {
    echo "No Price";
}
?>

 

However I get:

 

Warning: preg_match() [function.preg-match]: Unknown modifier 'n' in /home1/northes3/public_html/crawl/index.php on line 3

No Price

 

I am not sure what the "n" is that it refers to?

 

[jskarr1982]

I figured out to \ before any /.  Now the string:

<?php
$file = file_get_contents("https://www.amark.com/spotpricesst.asp");
$do = preg_match('/<nobr><a href="" onClick="NewWindow2(\'\/includes\/viewproduct.asp?ID=10\',\'SpotPrice_INFO\',610,300,\'0\',\'yes\',\'center\'); return false;">1 oz<\/a><\/nobr><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/td><td class="spotsborderbottom"><table cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 border=0><tr><td width=100%><\/td><td class="spotsnoborder">(.*)<\/td>/', $file, $matches);
if ($do) {
     print $matches['1'];

} else {
    echo "No Price";
}
?>

 

Simply doesn't find the target code.  Do you think it's just too buggy?

 

[jskarr1982]

I am trying to pull content from an ASP file if that makes any difference?

[ManiacDan]

There are special characters in regular expressions too.  These characters must be escaped with a back slash:

/?*$^.

 

-Dan

[jskarr1982]

Dan,

 

Thank you so much! It works now, however it doesn't stop at the ending </td>.  It keeps on going.  Does PHP pick the first </td> or is that not specific enough for it to know when to stop?  It pulls up the whole page after the price that I want to grab.

 

My example is at: http://www.northernnightsweb.com/crawl

 

Thank you!

 

 

[ManiacDan]

(.*)  <-- that selects as many things as it can, as long as the whole expression is still valid.  Regular expressions are greedy, and will match things as wide as it can.  You must use the "ungreedy" modifier to prevent this.  Change (.*) to (.*?)

 

-Dan

[jskarr1982]

Excellent!! That solved the problem.  Thank you so much for teaching me how to properly do this!