PHP - Extract a cell value of a table with a match expression - php

Question

I want to extract the value of a specific cell from a table in a web page. First I search a string (here a player's name) and after I wan't to get the value of the <td> cell associated (here 94).
I can connect to the web page, find the table with is id and get all values. I also can search a specific string with preg_match but I can't extract the value of the <td> cell.
What the best way to extract the value of a table with a match expression ?
Here is my script :
<?php
// Connect to the web page
$doc = new DOMDocument;
$doc->preserveWhiteSpace = false;
$doc->strictErrorChecking = false;
$doc->recover = true;
#$doc->loadHTMLFile('https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/trp_dbl_career.html');
$xpath = new DOMXPath($doc);
// Extract the table from is id
$table = $xpath->query("//*[#id='nba']")->item(0);
// See result in HTML
//$tableResult = $doc->saveHTML($table);
//print $tableResult;
// Get elements by tags and build a string
$str = "";
$rows = $table->getElementsByTagName("tr");
foreach ($rows as $row) {
$cells = $row -> getElementsByTagName('td');
foreach ($cells as $cell) {
$str .= $cell->nodeValue;
}
}
// Search a specific string (here a player's name)
$player = preg_match('/LeBron James(.*)/', $str, $matches);
// Get the value
$playerValue = intval(array_pop($matches));
print $playerValue;
?>
Here is the HTML structure of the table :
<table id="nba">
<thead><tr><th>Rank</th><th>Player</th><th>Trp Dbl</th></tr></thead>
...
<tr>
<td>5.</td>
<td><strong>LeBron James</strong></td>
<td>94</td>
</tr>
...
</table>

Answer 1

DOM manipulation solution.
Search over all cells and break if cell consists LeBron James value.
$doc = new DOMDocument;
$doc->preserveWhiteSpace = false;
$doc->strictErrorChecking = false;
$doc->recover = true;
#$doc->loadHTMLFile('https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/trp_dbl_career.html');
$xpath = new DOMXPath($doc);
$table = $xpath->query("//*[#id='nba']")->item(0);
$str = "";
$rows = $table->getElementsByTagName("tr");
$trpDbl = null;
foreach ($rows as $row) {
$cells = $row->getElementsByTagName('td');
foreach ($cells as $cell) {
if (preg_match('/LeBron James/', $cell->nodeValue, $matches)) {
$trpDbl = $cell->nextSibling->nodeValue;
break;
}
}
}
print($trpDbl);
Regex expression for whole cell value with name LeBron James.
$player = preg_match('/<td>(.*LeBron James.*)<\/td>/', $str, $matches);
If you want to capture also ID 94 from next cell you can use this expression.
$player = preg_match('/<td>(.*LeBron James.*)<\/td>\s*<td>(.*)<\/td>/', $str, $matches);
It returns two groups, first cell with player's name and second with ID.