Grab parameter in html with highest value

Question

I have $html:

$html = '<div>
<a href="./?pg=99"></a>
<a href="./?pg=32"></a>
<a href="./?pg=95"></a>
<a href="./?pg=1"></a>
//etc
';

How do I skim through it and grab the highest value of pg? So in above case, we get:

$result = 99;

Potential approach is to via preg_match_all() and regex locate /?pg= cases, order them and grab the highest numeric value.

Answer 1

You will need to escape ./? (resulting in \.\/\?) characters to get the numbers correctly, use the U flag for consecutive links, and then use max():

//                           number --v              U --v
preg_match_all('/<a.*href="\.\/\?pg=(\d+)".*>(?:.*)<\/a>/U', $html, $matches);

// numbers are our capture group 1 --> $matches[1]
$result = max($matches[1]);

var_dump($result);
// 99

No need to order the numbers.