PHP – Extract a cell value of a table with a match expression

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><a href="/players/j/jamesle01.html">LeBron James</a></strong></td>
<td>94</td>
</tr>
...
</table>

Answer

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.