Extracting Site data through Web Crawler outputs error due to mis-match of Array Index

Question

I been trying to extract site table text along with its link from the given table to (which is in site1.com) to my php page using a web crawler.

But unfortunately, due to incorrect input of Array index in the php code, it came error as output.

site1.com

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" class="Table2">
<tbody><tr>
    <td width="1%" valign="top" class="Title2">&nbsp;</td>
    <td width="65%" valign="top" class="Title2">Subject</td>
    <td width="1%" valign="top" class="Title2">&nbsp;</td>
    <td width="14%" valign="top" align="Center" class="Title2">Last Update</td>
    <td width="1%" valign="top" class="Title2">&nbsp;</td>
    <td width="8%" valign="top" align="Center" class="Title2">Replies</td>
    <td width="1%" valign="top" class="Title2">&nbsp;</td>
    <td width="9%" valign="top" align="Center" class="Title2">Views</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td width="1%" height="25">&nbsp;</td>
    <td width="64%" height="25" class="FootNotes2"><a href="/files/forum/2017/1/837110.php" target="_top" class="Links2">Serious dedicated study partner for U World</a> - step12013</td>
    <td width="1%" height="25">&nbsp;</td>
    <td width="14%" height="25" class="FootNotes2" align="center">02/11/17 01:50</td>
    <td width="1%" height="25">&nbsp;</td>
    <td width="8%" height="25" align="Center" class="FootNotes2">10</td>
    <td width="1%" height="25">&nbsp;</td>
    <td width="9%" height="25" align="Center" class="FootNotes2">318</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

The php. web crawler as ::

<?php
    function get_data($url) {
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url);
    $result=curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);
    return $result;
    }
    $returned_content = get_data('http://www.usmleforum.com/forum/index.php?forum=1');
    $first_step = explode( '<table class="Table2">' , $returned_content );
    $second_step = explode('</table>', $first_step[0]);
    $third_step = explode('<tr>', $second_step[1]);
    // print_r($third_step);
    foreach ($third_step as $key=>$element) {
    $child_first = explode( '<td class="FootNotes2"' , $element );
    $child_second = explode( '</td>' , $child_first[1] );
    $child_third = explode( '<a href=' , $child_second[0] );
    $child_fourth = explode( '</a>' , $child_third[0] );
    $final = "<a href=".$child_fourth[0]."</a></br>";
?>

<li target="_blank" class="itemtitle">
    <?php echo $final?>
</li>

<?php
    if($key==10){
       break;
        }
    }
?>

Now the Array Index on the above php code can be the culprit. (i guess) If so, can some one please explain me how to make this work.

But what my final requirement from this code is:: to get the above text in second with a link associated to it.

Any help is Appreciated..

Answer 1

Using the Simple HTML DOM Parser library, you can use the following code:

<?php
    require('simple_html_dom.php'); // you might need to change this, depending on where you saved the library file.

    $html = file_get_html('http://www.usmleforum.com/forum/index.php?forum=1');

    foreach($html->find('td.FootNotes2 a') as $element) { // find all <a>-elements inside a <td class="FootNotes2">-element
        $element->href = "http://www.usmleforum.com" . $element->href;  // you can also access only certain attributes of the elements (e.g. the url).
        echo $element.'</br>';  // do something with the elements.
    }
?>