preg match help

pattern match php preg_match

[jpl80]

I would like to use preg_match() to get everything between two html comments (from an external html file):

<!--begin_first-->
 <div id="firstp">
  <p>First paragraph</p>
 </div>
<!--end_first-->

[jpl80]

I found this snippet that does exactly what I want it to, but when I plug in my html comments in the place of this tag, it stops working.

Are you supposed to escape any of the characters in an html comment?

preg_match("/<title>(.*)<\/title>/i", $source, $tag_contents);
$title = $tag_contents[1];
echo $title;

[cameraman]

In this:
preg_match("/<title>(.*)<\/title>/i", $source, $tag_contents);

the backslash at <\/title> is escaping the /. If you're leaving that out, so you wind up with:

preg_match("/<!--begin_first-->(.*)<!--end_first-->/i", $source, $tag_contents);

then it should work. If you're leaving that backslash in, that's where the problem is.

[jpl80]

Yes, I left the escape character out. This is what I have. I cannot figure out why it won't work.

preg_match("/<!--beginfirst-->(.*)<!--endfirst-->/i", $source, $tag_contents);
$title = $tag_contents[1];
echo $title;

my html looks like this:

<div id="content">
<a name="skip"></a>
<!--beginfirst-->
<div id="first_learn">
<p>First paragraph from learn.html.</p>
</div>
<!--endfirst-->
<p>Maecenas mattis varius lorem.</p>
</div>
<!--end #content-->

[PHP_Chimp]

preg_match("/<!--beginfirst-->(.*)<!--endfirst-->/i", $source, $tag_contents);
$title = $tag_contents[1];
echo $title;

What are you using as $source?

[jpl80]

$source is:

$source = file_get_contents("learn.html");

And I know that works because when I plug in another tag, such as: <title>, I get the pages title.

[PHP_Chimp]

Try -

preg_match("/<!--beginfirst-->(.*)<!--endfirst-->/is", $source, $tag_contents);
$title = $tag_contents[1];
echo $title; 

As without the s modifier the . doesnt match the \n character.

[jpl80]

perfect. Thank you so much.