Scraping .php websites - php

Question

I'v been having trouble scraping the following website content: http://www.qe.com.qa/wp/mw/MarketWatch.php
using file_get_contents() never gets me the right tag. I would like to scrape the content of the following tag: td aria-describedby="grid_OfferPrice"
is the website protected from scraping? because when I try the same method with diffrent websites it works. if yes, then what is a good work around for this ?

Answer 1

The way to see if scraping works is to output what file_get_contents returns. If you have nothing back or an error then maybe your IP has been restricted by their admin.
If it returns their source code then it's working but maybe the tag you're looking for has not been found.
Eliminate failures in your process by answering these questions first, one at a time.
I viewed their source code and the aria attribute you are searching for doesn't appear to exist.
It seems they load the data on that page from another source which is at this page (http://www.qe.com.qa/wp/mw/bg/ReadData.php?Types=SELECTED&iType=SO&dummy=1401401577192&_search=false&nd=1401401577279&rows=100&page=1&sidx=&sord=asc)
If you want the data from that page then use file_get_contents on it directly.
The data from that page in an online json editor gives you a neat way of quickly seeing whether this is a useful solution for you.
A sample of that data is listed below:
{
"total": "140",
"page": "1",
"records": "140",
"rows": [
{
"Topic": "QNBK/NM",
"Symbol": "QNBK",
"CompanyEN": "QNB",
"CompanyAR": "QNB",
"Trend": "-",
"StateEN": "Tradeable",
"StateAR": "المتداوله",
"CatEN": "Listed Companies",
"CatAR": "الشركات المدرجة",
"SectorEN": "Banks & Financial Services",
"SectorAR": "البنوك والخدمات المالية",
"ShariahEN": "N/A",
"ShariahAR": "N/A",
"OfferVolume": "7503",
"OfferPrice": "184.00",
"BidPrice": "182.00",
"BidVolume": "15807",
"OpenPrice": "190.0",
"High": "191.7",
"Low": "181.0",
"IMP": "182.0",
"LastPrice": "182.0",
"PrevClosing": "187.0",
"Change": "-5.0",
"PercentChange": "-2.6737",
"Trades": "980",
"Volume": "2588830",
"W52High": "199.0",
"W52Low": "145.0",
"Value": "481813446.4"
},
{
"Topic": "QIBK/NM",
"Symbol": "QIBK",
"CompanyEN": "Qatar Islamic Bank",
"CompanyAR": "المصرف ",
"Trend": "+",
"StateEN": ...
Make sure you read this link about 'scraping' etiquette.

Answer 2

Link: http://simplehtmldom.sourceforge.net/
$dom = new DOMDocument();
$dom->loadHTML(file_get_contents("EXAMPLE.COM");
$items = $dom->getElementsByTagName("YOUR TAG");
This class allows you to search HTML code for elements. I have used it a few times before and it is by far the best solution I have found for your issue.