PHP simple HTML DOM parser errors

Question

I've started writing a scraper for one site that will also have a crawler, since I need to go through some links, but I'm getting this error :

PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to a member function find() on null in D:\Projekti\hemrank\simple_html_dom.php:1129 Stack trace:

0 D:\Projekti\hemrank\scrapeit.php(37): simple_html_dom->find('ul')

1 D:\Projekti\hemrank\scrapeit.php(19): ScrapeIt->getAllAddresses()

2 D:\Projekti\hemrank\scrapeit.php(55): ScrapeIt->run()

3 {main} thrown in D:\Projekti\hemrank\simple_html_dom.php on line 1129

When I var_dump the $html variable I get the full html with all the tags, etc, that's why it's strange to me that it says "Call to a member function find() on null", when there's actually value in the $html. Here's the part of the code that's not working :

        $html = new simple_html_dom();
        $html->load_file($baseurl);
        if(empty($html)){echo "HTTP Response not received!<br/>\n";exit;}
        $links = array();
        foreach ($html->find('ul') as $ul) {
            if(!empty($ul) && (count($ul)>0))
            foreach ($ul->find('li') as $li) {
                if(!empty($li) && (count($li)>0))
                foreach ($li->find('a') as $a) {
                    $links[] = $a->href;
                }
                else
                    die("NOT AVAILABLE");
            }
        }
        
        return $links;

    }

Is this a common problem with PHP simple HTML DOM parser, is there a solution or should I switch to some other kind of scraping?

I think It should be just $html = file_get_html($baseurl); — Alexey Chuhrov
– Alexey Chuhrov, Commented Sep 14, 2017 at 13:03
@axiac no it doesn't, you download it and include it in the file where you're going to use it.. — MirzaS
– MirzaS, Commented Sep 14, 2017 at 13:06
@teeyo that's the one I'm asking a question about.... the whole title says PHP simple HTML DOM error — MirzaS
– MirzaS, Commented Sep 14, 2017 at 13:09

delboy1978uk · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-14 13:06:22Z

0

I just searched for the lib you are using, this is line 1129:

return $this->root->find($selector, $idx, $lowercase);

So your error message is telling you that $this->root inside the class is null, therefore no find() method exists!

I'm no expert on the lib, as I use the awesome DOMDocument for parsing HTML, but hopefully this should help you understand what has happened.

Also, $html will never be empty in that code of yours, you already populated it when you instantiated it!

answered Sep 14, 2017 at 13:06

delboy1978uk

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2 Comments

teeyo Over a year ago

It's possible, and it could be the first $html->find('ul') which means the $html->load_file($baseurl) couldn't load the file!

delboy1978uk Over a year ago

var_dump($html), to see what root is actually set at

kacase · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-18 00:05:17Z

0

I suggest the following change:

$html->load_file($baseurl); to $html = file_get_html($baseurl);

On my VPS server it works with $html->load_file($baseurl); but on my dedicated local server it only works with $html = file_get_html($baseurl);

This solved my problem: - Call to a member function find() on null - simple_html_dom.php on line 1129

edited Nov 18, 2017 at 0:05

kacase

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answered Nov 17, 2017 at 17:57

José Miguel Acosta Martín

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