PHP regex: split content

1

You have super powers, maybe you can help me with this regular expression.

I want to insert some content between some blocks. I’d like to split the content in an array.

This is an example of content generated by Wordpress:

<!-- wp:heading {"level":4} -->
<h4><em>More info: <a href="https://example.com">Some text for the link</a></em></h4>
<!-- /wp:heading -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aliquam est diam, ultrices in tempor a, dignissim et neque.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>SLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aliquam est diam, ultrices in tempor a, dignissim et neque.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph --><!-- wp:heading -->
<h2>Neque porro quisquam est qui </h2>
<!-- /wp:heading -->



<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aliquam est diam, ultrices in tempor a, dignissim et neque.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>Cras ullamcorper luctus felis vitae lobortis. Fusce ut aliquam elit. Proin malesuada arcu sit amet ullamcorper auctor.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

Output should be something like:

Array
(
    [0] => 
<!-- wp:heading {"level":4} -->
<h4><em>More info: <a href="https://example.com">Some text for the link</a></em></h4>
<!-- /wp:heading -->

    [1] => 
<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aliquam est diam, ultrices in tempor a, dignissim et neque.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

    [2] => 
<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>SLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aliquam est diam, ultrices in tempor a, dignissim et neque.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

    [3] =>
<!-- wp:heading -->
<h2>Neque porro quisquam est qui </h2>
<!-- /wp:heading -->

    [4] => 
<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aliquam est diam, ultrices in tempor a, dignissim et neque.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

    [5] => 
<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>Cras ullamcorper luctus felis vitae lobortis. Fusce ut aliquam elit. Proin malesuada arcu sit amet ullamcorper auctor.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

The following is a regex used in the Wordpress core to extract data from these blocks but I’m not sure how to adapte it:

(?P<closer>\/)?wp:(?P<namespace>[a-z][a-z0-9_-]*\/)?(?P<name>[a-z][a-z0-9_-]*)\s+(?P<attrs>{(?:(?:[^}]+|}+(?=})|(?!}\s+\/?-->).)*+)?}\s+)?(?P<void>\/)?

After converting to an array, I will be free to insert more content.

Thank you.

2

What language are you using? In Python, I know you can just make an array from all matches. Does this exist in your language? Maybe just match something like

<!-- wp:.*? -->.*?<!-- \/wp:.*? -->

and let . match newlines.

1 Like
3

Actually, this looks like js. So, I guess:

var regex = /<!-- wp:.*? -->.*?<!-- \/wp:.*? -->/sg;
var outputArray = inputString.match(regex);
1 Like
4

Awesome @mwt! Thank you very much.

I’ve seen another case than can exists:

<!-- wp:heading {"level":4} -->
<h4><em>More info: <a href="https://example.com">Some text for the link</a></em></h4>
<!-- /wp:heading -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aliquam est diam, ultrices in tempor a, dignissim et neque.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

There is some additional content here too.

Can be multiple paragraphs. This and the previous one should be an item too.

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aliquam est diam, ultrices in tempor a, dignissim et neque.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

What if there are some content unwrapped in between? I’d like to match it too because after joining all the content, it can be lost.

5

One hack would be to use regex replace to add some delimiter that you don’t expect in your HTML like &🙃; and then split by this delimiter. That way you would know that your text was complete.

There’s probably a better way…

1 Like
6

I made it :smiley:

$content_by_blocks = preg_split( '/(<!-- wp:.*? -->.*?<!-- \/wp:.*? -->)/s', $the_content, null, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY | PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE );

Thank you!

1 Like
7

That’s much better than my emoji delimiter idea :smile:.

1 Like