Question

I have some content like this

<p>some content, paragraph 1</p>
<p>some content, paragraph 2</p>
<p>some content, paragraph 3</p>

I would like to return the first paragraph i.e.

<p>some content, paragraph 1</p>

Can anyone assist me with the regex code?
'<p>(.*.)</p>' doesnt seem to work

Answer 1

you can do it this way:

if (preg_match('%(<p[^>]*>.*?</p>)%i', $subject, $regs)) {
    $result = $regs[1];
} else {
    $result = "";
}

You test your string against the regular expresion, if there are some match, you get the first and only the first one, if there are none $result will be an empty string.

If you need to get more than the first result you can iterate over the $regs array. And of you need to find any other tag change the regular expresión to macht it, for example to find IMAGE tags you use:

(<img[^>]*>.*?</img>)

EDIT: If you are processing line by line (with only the tag you are looking for) you can put ^…$ around the expresion to match a full line, like this:

if (preg_match('%^(<p[^>]*>.*?</p>)$%im', $subject, $regs)) {
    $result = $regs[1];
} else {
    $result = "";
}

HTH, Regards.