How to check if a SimpleHTMLDom element does not exist

Question

SimpleHtmldom can be used to extract the contents of the first element with class description.

$html = str_get_html($html);
$html->find('.description', 0)

However if this class does not exist, PHP will throw an error

Trying to get property of non-object

I tried

if(!isset($html->find('.description', 0))) {
    echo 'not set';
}

and

if(!empty($html->find('.description', 0))) {
    echo 'not set';
}

but both gives the error

Can't use method return value in write context

What is the proper way to check if the element exist?

Opaline

empty cannot operat directly on the value. $html->find() returns an empty array if element was not found. So the solution offered by Death should be valid. – Romanfleuve

FYI: blog.futtta.be/2012/05/31/… – Deedradeeds

Answer 1

if(($html->find('.description', 0))) {
    echo 'set';
}else{
    echo 'not set';
}

http://www.php.net/manual/en/control-structures.if.php

Excoriation

not work Fatal error: Call to a member function find() on a non-object – Quinton

@AnassElFakir *_get_html functions may return false :) – Excoriation

Answer 2

According to the SimpleHtmlDOM Api str_get_html($html) expects a string as input. First check with a html validator if your code is well formatted.

$htmlObj = str_get_html($html);
if (!is_object($htmlObj)) return; // catch errors 

// or wrap further code in 
if (is_object($htmlObj)) { /* doWork */ }

Zoology

Answer 3

$avalable = ($element->find('span.sold-out-text', 0)) ? 1 : 0;

It works for me.

Pronouncement