preg_replace string with tags

Question

I have the following string where I want to remove everything between the following tags including those tags:

<br> and the </span>

<a class='interactive' href='http://mathbench.umd.edu/modules/microbio_counting-methods/page01.htm' target='_blank' alt='Counting bacteria' >Counting bacteria<br><span class='attribute'> - University of Maryland</span></a>

I have tried preg_replace('/<br>.*?</a>/', '', $link) but that seems to remove the href...

Any ideas how I should do this?

EDIT: After using:

 preg_replace('/<br>.*?<\/span>/', '', $link) 

I now see in the source:

 <tr>
    <td><a class='interactive' href='http://www.proteinatlas.org/' target='_blank' alt='The protein atlas' >The protein atlas<br><span class='attribute'> - Uppsala Univeristät</td> 
    <td width='16' align='center' valign='middle'><a class='delete_link' href='#' data_link='%3Ca+class%3D%27interactive%27+href%3D%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww.proteinatlas.org%2F%27+target%3D%27_blank%27+alt%3D%27The+protein+atlas%27+%3EThe+protein+atlas%3Cbr%3E%3Cspan+class%3D%27attribute%27%3E+-+Uppsala+Univerist%C3%A4t' data_topic='161' data_introduction=''><img src="../images/delete.png" width="16" height="16" alt="delete" title="delete this link" border='0' /></a></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td> funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation</span></a></td> 
    <td width='16' align='center' valign='middle'><a class='delete_link' href='#' data_link='+funded+by+the+Knut+and+Alice+Wallenberg+Foundation%3C%2Fspan%3E%3C%2Fa%3E' data_topic='161' data_introduction=''><img src="../images/delete.png" width="16" height="16" alt="delete" title="delete this link" border='0' /></a></td>
  </tr>

Edit: Also tried;

preg_replace('/<br><span class=\'attribute\'>.*?<\/span>/', '', $link)

but problem persists.

EDIT

Still see the source showing as:

<a class='interactive' href='http://www.tinyurl.com/immunologygame/' target='_blank' alt='Innate Immunology game' >Innate Immunology game<br><span class='attribute'> - University of Ballarat</span></a>

Answer 1

Try this :

<?php

$str = "<a class='interactive' href='http://mathbench.umd.edu/modules/microbio_counting-methods/page01.htm' target='_blank' alt='Counting bacteria' >Counting bacteria<br><span class='attribute'> - University of Maryland</span></a>";

$r = '/<br>(.+?)<\/span>/';

$str = preg_replace($r, '', $str);

echo $str;

?>

Output :

<a class='interactive' href='http://mathbench.umd.edu/modules/microbio_counting-methods/page01.htm' target='_blank' alt='Counting bacteria' >Counting bacteria</a>

---

Demo : http://regexr.com?33s84

Answer 2

Try this

$str = "<a class='interactive' href='http://mathbench.umd.edu/modules/microbio_counting-methods/page01.htm' target='_blank' alt='Counting bacteria' >Counting bacteria<br><span class='attribute'> - University of Maryland</span></a>";

echo htmlspecialchars(preg_replace('#(<a[^>]+?>)([^<>]+).*#i', '$1$2</a>', $str));

Answer 3

Just use this short pattern:

/<br>.*?<\/span>/

The output will be something like this:

<a class='interactive' href='http://mathbench.umd.edu/modules/microbio_counting-methods/page01.htm' target='_blank' alt='Counting bacteria' >Counting bacteriabla</a>