What is PHPQuery?
PHPQuery is a PHP library that provides a jQuery-like syntax for querying and manipulating HTML documents、It simplifies tasks such as parsing HTML, extracting data, and modifying DOM structures, making it ideal for web scraping, template generation, or HTML manipulation.
Key Features
1、jQuery Syntax: Use familiar selectors (e.g., `$('id')`, `$('.class')`).
2、DOM Manipulation: Modify HTML content, attributes, and styles.
3、Web Scraping: Extract data from HTML pages.
4、Dynamic Templates: Generate HTML dynamically in PHP.
Installation
Install via Composer:
bash
composer require phpquery/phpquery
Basic Usage Example
php
// Load HTML from a string
$html = '<div<h1Title</h1<pContent</p</div';
$pq = phpQuery::newDocument($html);
// Select elements and extract text
$title = $pq-find('h1')-text(); // Outputs: Title
$content = $pq-find('p')-text(); // Outputs: Content
// Modify HTML
$pq-find('p')-append('<spanNew Text!</span');
echo $pq; // Outputs modified HTML
Common Use Cases
Web Scraping: Fetch HTML from URLs and extract structured data.
php
$url = 'https://65.hk';
$html = file_get_contents($url);
$pq = phpQuery::newDocument($html);
$data = $pq-find('.product-name')-text();
Comparison with Alternatives
| Tool | Use Case | Notes |
|
| PHPQuery | Simple HTML manipulation | jQuery-like syntax, easy to learn、 |
| DomCrawler| Symfony projects | Part of Symfony Components、 |
| Goutte | Advanced web scraping | Built on Guzzle + DomCrawler、 |
Best Practices
Error Handling: Use `libxml_use_internal_errors(true)` to suppress warnings for malformed HTML.
Security: Sanitize inputs to prevent XSS attacks.
Performance: Avoid processing very large HTML files.
PHPQuery is a lightweight tool for quick HTML tasks、For larger projects, consider integrating with frameworks like Symfony or using dedicated scrapers like Goutte.