How to get string after xpath - php

Question

I have this html page:
<div class="table_container p402_hide " id="div_Summer">
<table class=" stats_table" id="Summer">
<colgroup><col><col><col><col><col><col><col><col><col></colgroup>
<thead>
<tr class="">
<th data-stat="year" align="right" class=" sort_default_asc" >Year</th>
<th data-stat="city" align="left" class=" sort_default_asc" >City</th>
<th data-stat="country" align="left" class=" sort_default_asc" >Country</th>
<th data-stat="countries" align="right" class="" >Countries</th>
<th data-stat="participants" align="right" class="" >Participants</th>
<th data-stat="participants_men" align="right" class="" >Men</th>
<th data-stat="participants_women" align="right" class="" >Women</th>
<th data-stat="sports" align="right" class="" >Sports</th>
<th data-stat="events" align="right" class="" >Events</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr class="">
<td align="right" >2012</td>
<td align="left" csk="London:2012">London</td>
<td align="left" csk="Great Britain:2012">Great Britain</td>
<td align="right" >205</td>
<td align="right" >10,519</td>
<td align="right" >5,864</td>
<td align="right" >4,655</td>
<td align="right" >32</td>
<td align="right" >302</td>
</tr>
To extract the text I used this code written in PHP 7:
<?php
$html = file_get_contents('http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/summer/');
error_reporting(E_ERROR | E_PARSE);
$doc = new DOMDocument();
$doc->loadHTML($html);
$xpath = new DOMXpath($doc);
$result = $xpath->query('//div[#id="div_Summer"]');
var_dump($result->item(0)->nodeValue);
?>
In this way I get this result:
string(2148) "
Year
City
Country
Countries
Participants
Men
Women
Sports
Events
2012
London
Great Britain
205
10,519
5,864
4,655
32
302
"
I would like only this text: "2012" and "London". How could I extract this information from $result?

Answer 1

Have you tried to query the td(s) you're interested in directly?
Try using a more specific xpath expression, like this:
$result = $xpath->query('(//div[#id="div_Summer"]//tbody//tr//td[position() >= 1 and position() <= 2])');
And then processing them through a simple loop:
<?php
foreach ($result as $element) {
var_dump($element->nodeValue);
}
?>
Full example, based on your code:
<?php
$html = file_get_contents('http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/summer/');
error_reporting(E_ERROR | E_PARSE);
$doc = new DOMDocument();
$doc->loadHTML($html);
$xpath = new DOMXpath($doc);
$result = $xpath->query('(//div[#id="div_Summer"]//tbody//tr//td[position() >= 1 and position() <= 2])');
foreach ($result as $element) {
var_dump($element->nodeValue);
}
?>
Output (truncated):
string(4) "2012"
string(6) "London"
string(4) "2008"
string(7) "Beijing"
string(4) "2004"
[..]