Using simple_html_dom to parse a ul

Question

I would like to get the inner text of each span in this ul.

<ul class="alternatingList">
     <li><strong>Last Played</strong><span id="ctl00_mainContent_lastPlayedLabel">04.29.2011</span></li>
     <li class="alt"><strong>Armory Completion</strong><span id="ctl00_mainContent_armorCompletionLabel">52%</span></li>
     <li><strong>Daily Challenges</strong><span id="ctl00_mainContent_dailyChallengesLabel">127</span></li>
     <li class="alt"><strong>Weekly Challenges</strong><span id="ctl00_mainContent_weeklyChallengesLabel">4</span></li>
     <li><strong>Matchmaking MP Kills</strong><span id="ctl00_mainContent_matchmakingKillsLabel">11,280 (1.18)</span></li>
     <li class="alt"><strong>Matchmaking MP Medals</strong><span id="ctl00_mainContent_medalsLabel">15,383</span></li>
     <li><strong>Covenant Killed</strong><span id="ctl00_mainContent_covenantKilledLabel">10,395</span></li>
     <li class="alt"><strong>Player Since</strong><span id="ctl00_mainContent_playerSinceLabel">09.13.2010</span></li>
     <li class="gamesPlayed"><strong>Games Played</strong><span id="ctl00_mainContent_gamesPlayedLabel">975</span></li>
</ul>

I have this right now but I want to do it without writing the same code over for each span.

//pull last played text
$last_played = '';
$last_played_el = $html->find(".alternatingList");
if (preg_match('|<span[^>]+>(.*)</span>|U', $last_played_el[0], $matches)) {
    $last_played = $matches[1];
}

echo $last_played;

Answer 1

you're already using a parser, why would you want to use a regex? You can access each span's inner text quite easily:

$html = new simple_html_dom();  

// Load from a string, where $raw is your UL or the page its on  
$html->load($raw); 

foreach($html->find('.alternatingList span')as $found) {
    echo $found->innertext . "\n";
}

Answer 2

Have a look at preg_match_all. It will give an array of all matches