Question

I am working on a project that pulls data from JMS queue using PHP and Zend Framework. The HTTP client response is below. All I need is the XML string.

I came up with /(.*)</RequestDetails>/gs which tests ok on http://gskinner.com/RegExr/ but the preg_match call is returning an empty matches array.

I’m going to continue to hunt around for a pattern, but thought I would post here as well.

Thanks to all who read, etc…

Steve

UPDATE: I can’t get the code to paste correctly. Here’s a link to a pastbin: http://pastebin.com/rQxzcfSg

Answer 1

The following snippet:

<?php

$text = <<<EOT

blah blah <0>
<RequestDetails><1><2><3>test</RequestDetails>
<RequestDetails><4><5><6>blah
more blah blah
</RequestDetails>
blah blah <7>


EOT;

print $text;

preg_match_all('/<RequestDetails>(.*?)<\/RequestDetails>/s', $text, $matches);

print_r($matches);

?>

Generates this output:

blah blah <0>
<RequestDetails><1><2><3>test</RequestDetails>
<RequestDetails><4><5><6>blah
more blah blah
</RequestDetails>
blah blah <7>

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => <RequestDetails><1><2><3>test</RequestDetails>
            [1] => <RequestDetails><4><5><6>blah
more blah blah
</RequestDetails>
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [0] => <1><2><3>test
            [1] => <4><5><6>blah
more blah blah

        )

)

I’ve used preg_match_all instead of /g flag, and also used (.*?) reluctant matching, which is really what you want to get multiple matches.

To see why it makes a difference, in the following text, there are two A.*?Z matches, but only one A.*Z.

 ---A--Z---A--Z----
    ^^^^^^^^^^^
       A.*Z

That said, parsing XML using regex is ill-advised. Use a proper XML parser; it’ll make your life much easier.