preg_match with html tags

Question

I am trying to get a piece of content out of a website that shows the current status from the server. I did this by the file_get_content method. When I try to search through it, i used a preg_match to find the item i want, but it ends up with html tags i cant seem to correctly escape within the code. I get an error W arning: preg_match() [function.preg-match]: Unknown modifier 'B' . So how do I escape this? and further I missed probably a few functions, but I am not really familair with the RegEx.

$content = file_get_contents('http://www.swgemu.com/forums/content.php');   
$string = '<h3>Basilisk<\/h3><p>Status:<span class=\"online\">Online<\/span>';

if (preg_match($string , $content))
{ echo "The Basilisk server is online"; }
else
{ echo "The Basilisk server is offline";}

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

It's a regex. Use a delimiter. Something like this -

$string = '/<h3>Basilisk<\/h3><p>Status:<span class=\"online\">Online<\/span>/';

Answer 2

Better use DOM parsers, but if you really need regex, try to allow spaces:

$content = file_get_contents('http://www.swgemu.com/forums/content.php');   
$string = '/<h3>\s*Basilisk\s*<\/h3>\s*<p>\s*Status:\s*<span\s+class=\"online\">\s*Online\s*<\/span>/i';

if (preg_match($string , $content))
{ echo "The Basilisk server is online"; }
else
{ echo "The Basilisk server is offline";}