Question

I’m trying to loop through an array of links, and use the file_get_contents to get the source code and take certain content from it:

$links = file('mysite2.txt');

foreach($links as $link) {

$f = file_get_contents("$link");
$source = $f;


if(preg_match('/<meta pro=\"(.*)\" \/>/',$source,$matches)) {
   $answer = $matches[1];

echo "$answer";
}

}

Now when i use $link in the file_get_contents (file_get_contents("$link")) function, the preg_match condition is false. Yet when i use one of the links in my_site2.txt in the file_get_contents (`file_get_contents(“http://www.site.com/something”)) it works fine.

I’ve even tried using a different txt file which only contains one link, which had the correct string in the source code.

Iv also tried without quotes: file_get_contents($link)

Answer 1

There were a couple of things.

1. filenames in $f will contain newlines. You need to add an additional flag for file to prevent this:

   $links = file('mysite2.txt', FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES);
   

2. you don’t need to escape double quotes in your regex.

3. are you sure that your regex needs a space before />? Your regex will match <meta pro="test" /> but not <meta pro="test"/>.