How to find a string before an other string in php - php

Question

I am trying to find and change a string found before an other string.
<div class="item" ....>
<img scr="rambo" />
This code repeats for every movie. I have to set the item class for any chosen movie to
<div class="item active" ....>
<img scr="rambo" />
So I am looking for the first class before any given movietitle and then set it to active.
(In the code, where i placed the dots, there is a lot of code that keeps changing (like coordinates) so I can't count backwards to that position.)
Can someone help me with this? Thnx.
This is the actual code for 2 movies wich is created by a javascript coverflow script:
<div class="item " href="cover.php?film=Terminator 2" style="display: block; left: 452.383126009628px; top: 176.25px; height: 264.375px; width: 117.666903409091px; font-size: 50%; z-index: 32765; visibility: visible;">
<canvas class="content portray" src="films/Terminator 2/cover.jpg" origproportion="0.6676136363636364" width="235" height="528"></canvas>
<div class="caption">Terminator 2 Judgment Day
<div class="cover_beschrijving">
<div class="cover_left">
<ul>
<li><h1>jaar:</h1>1991</li>
<li><h1>genre:</h1>Actie</li>
<li><h1>speelduur:</h1>137 minuten</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="clearer"></div>
<div class="cover_right">--Movie discription--</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="item active" href="cover.php?film=The Fast and the Furious" style="display: block; left: 727.832386363636px; top: 0px; height: 528.75px; width: 236.335227272727px; font-size: 100%; z-index: 32768; visibility: visible;">
<canvas class="content portray" src="films/The Fast and the Furious/cover.jpg" origproportion="0.6704545454545454" width="236" height="528"></canvas>
<div class="caption">The Fast and the Furious
<div class="cover_beschrijving">
<div class="cover_left">
<ul>
<li><h1>jaar:</h1>2001</li>
<li><h1>genre:</h1>Actie</li>
<li><h1>speelduur:</h1>107 minuten</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="clearer"></div>
<div class="cover_right">---Movie discription---</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

Answer 1

You can use preg_replace to find the strings and replace them. This regex <div\sclass=\"item\".*> will match <div class="item" ....> If you want to include the img tag in the match, you have to modify the regex accordingly, but I don't see why you care for that, if it was me I would stop at <div class="item"
Then it's just a matter of providing the replacement string.