Question

The following situation:

$text = "This is some <span class='classname'>example</span> text i'm writing to
demonstrate the <span class='classname otherclass'>problem</span> of this.<br />";

preg_match_all("|<[^>/]*(classname)(.+)>(.*)</[^>]+>|U", $text, $matches, PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);

I need an array ($matches) where in one field is “<span class='classname'>example</span>” and in another “example“.
But what i get here is one field with “<span class='classname'>example</span>” and one with “classname”.

It also should contain the values for the other matches, of course.

how can i get the right values?

Answer 1

You would be better off with a DOM parser, however this question is more to do with how capturing works in Regexes in general.

The reason you are getting classname as a match is because you are capturing it by putting () around it. They are completely unnecessary so you can just remove them. Similarly, you don’t need them around .+ since you don’t want to capture that.

If you had some group that you had to enclose in () as grouping rather than capturing, start the group with ?: and it won’t be captured.