A small PHP utility to find within a string based on a start and end point.

find.php

<?php

/*
 * Small Utility to find within a string based on a start 
 * and end point.
 * https://github.com/jakerb
 * http://jakebown.com
 * @jakebown1
 */
 
function str_find($f, $t, $str) {
    
    preg_match_all("#" . $f . "(.*?)" . $t . "#msi", $str, $result);
    if (is_array($result)) {
        $output = [];
        foreach ($result as $r) {
            if (is_array($r)) {
                foreach ($r as $sr) {
                    $output[] = $sr;
                }
            } 
            else {
                $output[] = $r;
            }
        }
        return $output;
    } 
    else {
        return false;
    }
}

?>

test.php

<?php
  require "find.php";
  
  $exampleA = "<p>Hello World</p>";
  $exampleB = "<a href=\"#\">I'm a Link</a>";
  $exampleC = "<ul>
               <li>Item 1</li>
               <li>Item 2</li>
               <li>Item 3</li>
               </ul>";
               
  print_r(str_find("<p>", "</p>", $exampleA)); //Get text in tag
  /* Array
   (
    [0] => <p>Hello World</p>
    [1] => Hello World
   )
  */
  
  print_r(str_find("<a href=\"", "\">", $exampleB)); //Get Link from A
  /*
  Array
  (
      [0] => <a href="#">
      [1] => #
  )
  */
  
  print_r(str_find("<li>", "</li>", $exampleC)); //Get text from lists
  /*
  Array
  (
      [0] => <li>Item 1</li>
      [1] => <li>Item 2</li>
      [2] => <li>Item 3</li>
      [3] => Item 1
      [4] => Item 2
      [5] => Item 3
  )
  */
?>