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Asked: 2026-06-12T18:18:00+00:00

I have the following string: $out = ‘ <li style=margin: 0px; padding: 0px; >myspace&nbsp;<a

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I have the following string:

$out = '
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; ">myspace&nbsp;<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=myspace" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ Google" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/g-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ Google" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16"></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=myspace" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ Yahoo" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/y-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ Yahoo" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16">&nbsp;</a><a href="http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=MSNH&srch_type=0&q=myspace" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ MSN" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/m-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ MSN" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16"></a></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; ">google&nbsp;<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=google" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ Google" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/g-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ Google" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16"></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=google" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ Yahoo" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/y-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ Yahoo" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16">&nbsp;</a><a href="http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=MSNH&srch_type=0&q=google" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ MSN" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/m-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ MSN" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16"></a></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; ">youtube&nbsp;<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=youtube" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ Google" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/g-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ Google" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16"></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=youtube" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ Yahoo" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/y-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ Yahoo" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16">&nbsp;</a><a href="http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=MSNH&srch_type=0&q=youtube" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ MSN" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/m-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ MSN" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16"></a></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; ">ebay&nbsp;<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=ebay" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ Google" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/g-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ Google" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16"></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=ebay" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ Yahoo" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/y-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ Yahoo" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16">&nbsp;</a><a href="http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=MSNH&srch_type=0&q=ebay" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ MSN" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/m-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ MSN" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16"></a></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; ">yahoo&nbsp;<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=yahoo" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ Google" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/g-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ Google" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16"></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=yahoo" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ Yahoo" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/y-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ Yahoo" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16">&nbsp;</a><a href="http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=MSNH&srch_type=0&q=yahoo" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ MSN" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/m-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ MSN" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16"></a></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; ">craigslist&nbsp;<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=craigslist" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ Google" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/g-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ Google" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16"></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=craigslist" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ Yahoo" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/y-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ Yahoo" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16">&nbsp;</a><a href="http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=MSNH&srch_type=0&q=craigslist" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ MSN" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/m-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ MSN" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16"></a></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; ">you tube&nbsp;<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=you%20tube" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ Google" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/g-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ Google" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16"></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=you%20tube" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ Yahoo" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/y-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ Yahoo" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16">&nbsp;</a><a href="http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?FORM=MSNH&srch_type=0&q=you%20tube" rel="gb_pageset[]" title="Results @ MSN" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 102, 255); "><img src="http://www.howrank.com/images/m-tiny.jpg" alt="Results @ MSN" border="0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " width="16" height="16"></a></li>
';

and basically want to echo everything that shows after 

<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; ">

and before 

&nbsp;<a href="http://www.goo

The result I would like to see is:

myspace
google
ebay
yahoo
craigslist
you tube

I tried various things that I found on stackoverflow but for some reason it either only returned one word or I got a 500 server error, so maybe YOU know the right solution.

For example:

$startsAt = strpos($out, '<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; ">') + strlen('<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; ">');
$endsAt = strpos($out, '&nbsp;<a href="http://www.goo', $startsAt);
$result = substr($out, $startsAt, $endsAt - $startsAt);

echo $result;

I know, there is something missing like some foreach matching stuff, but since I am new to PHP, I am still stuck with this until I fully understand how this all works. I tried something like foreach($result as match) { echo $match; } and so on, but with no success. Must be something that I am missing.

Don’t be too harsh with me, I am still very new to PHP (started about a week ago) but I’m willing to learn 🙂

Thank you for your time.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team
    if (preg_match_all('/>([^<>]+?)&nbsp;/', $out, $matches)) {
    print_r($matches[1]);
}

    This captures text between > and &nbsp;. The ([^<>]+?) part matches any character except angle brackets [^<>] repeated one or more times +, finding the shortest matches possible ?. The parentheses are used to capture these matching parts so we can access them via $matches[1] afterwards.

    Output:

    Array
(
    [0] => myspace
    [1] => google
    [2] => youtube
    [3] => ebay
    [4] => yahoo
    [5] => craigslist
    [6] => you tube
)
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