Question

I have the following code which is suppose to loop through a set of nodeValues and stop on the node if it begins with specific letters. I am very new to looping but thought the following code would work.. what am i doing wrong?

$file = $DOCUMENT_ROOT. "http://website.com";
$doc = new DOMDocument();
@$doc->loadHTMLFile($file);


$elements = $doc->getElementsByTagName('td');

$i=0;
 while (trim(substr($elements->item($i)->nodeValue, 0, 3)) !== "MON" | "TUE"){

        echo $elements->item($i)->nodeValue;
        $i=$i+1;

        };

Answer 1

You have some significant logic and operator issues in your while condition. | is a bitwise OR comparison, and it looks like you really mean to use a logical AND &&, since your loop needs to continue as long as the node value is not equal to either MON or TUE:

I would recommend storing the nodeValue outside the while loop and comparing a variable for readability:

$i = 0;
// Store the first node value ahead of the loop
$currentNode = trim(substr($elements->item($i)->nodeValue, 0, 3));
// Test it's neither MON nor TUE
// That is, "not equal to 'MON' *AND* not equal to 'TUE'"
while ($currentNode !== "MON" && $currentNode !== "TUE") {
    echo $elements->item($i)->nodeValue;
    $i=$i+1;
    // Then reassign $currentNode after $i increments
    $currentNode = trim(substr($elements->item($i)->nodeValue, 0, 3));    
}