Finding HTML tags in string

Question

I know this question is around SO, but I can't find the right one and I still suck in Regex :/

I have an string and that string is valid HTML. Now I want to find all the tags with an certain name and attribute.

I tried this regex (i.e. div with type): /(<div type="my_special_type" src="(.*?)<\/div>)/.

Example string:

<div>Do not match me</div>
<div type="special_type" src="bla"> match me</div>
<a>not me</a>
<div src="blaw" type="special_type" > match me too</div>

If I use preg_match then I only get <div type="special_type" src="bla"> match me</div> what is logical because the other one has the attributes in a different order.

What regex do I need to get the following array when using preg_match on the example string?:

array(0 => '<div type="special_type" src="bla"> match me</div>',
      1 => '<div src="blaw" type="special_type" > match me too</div>')

Answer 1

A general advice: Dont use regex to parse HTML It will get messy if the HTML changes..

Use DOMDocument instead:

$str = <<<EOF
<div>Do not match me</div>
<div type="special_type" src="bla"> match me</div>
<a>not me</a>
<div src="blaw" type="special_type" > match me too</div>
EOF;

$doc = new DOMDocument();
$doc->loadHTML($str);    
$selector = new DOMXPath($doc);

$result = $selector->query('//div[@type="special_type"]');

// loop through all found items
foreach($result as $node) {
    echo $node->getAttribute('src');
}