PHP: Strip Tags But Register Offsets. Replace Text Without Affecting Html Tags.

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OBJECTIVE: the purpose of this function is not that of stripping tags (as strip_tags does) but of returning the offset positions where the text wrapped within tags is located.  
Such data is useful for the following process at least: manipulating (for instance: searching and replacing) an input text without affecting its html tags (assumed as present in such input text - though the function would return the expected outcome also if tags are absent).  
 
That is, manipulating text only within the portions that do not represent html tags, and then rebuild the original text inclusive of the html tags (which therefore are not stripped, thence the difference with strip_tags) retaining the manipulations.  

function stripTagsOffsets($input=''){
$opentags=substr_count($input, '<'); $closedtags=substr_count($input, '>');
if(!$opentags || !$closedtags){return array(array(strlen($input), 0));};
$array=array(); $afterLastClosedTagPosition=-1; $beforeNextOpenTagPosition=strpos($input, '<');
	for($i=0; $i<$opentags; $i++){
	$array[]=array($beforeNextOpenTagPosition, ++$afterLastClosedTagPosition);
	$beforeNextOpenTagPosition=strpos($input, '<', ++$beforeNextOpenTagPosition);
	$afterLastClosedTagPosition=strpos($input, '>', ++$afterLastClosedTagPosition);
	}
array_push($array, array( strlen($input), ++$afterLastClosedTagPosition ));
return $array;/*keep this comment to reuse freely
http://www.fullposter.com/?1*/}

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INPUTS: a string.  
 
RETURNS: array of arrays. Each nested array is composed of two entries, both numbers:  
the first entry is the index position of the char soon before the next html tag bracket is to open (<);  
the second entry is the index position of the first char soon after the preceding html tag was closed (>)  
 
Example of use:  

function usageExample($input=''){/*INCLUDE FUNCTION: stripTagsOffsets.
This is a MERE example function, assuming the passed argument is in the shape returned by stripTagsOffsets*/
$outcome=stripTagsOffsets($input); print_r($outcome); print '<hr>';
$L=sizeof($outcome); $output=array(); $n=0;
for(; $n<$L; $n++){
$output[]='<xmp>'.
		/*Offsets to use to grab tag BEFORE:*/substr($input, $outcome[$n-1][0], $outcome[$n][1]-$outcome[$n-1][0]).
	"</xmp>\n ".
			/*Offsets to use to grab text, plus: ACTION instance: replacing 'e' in TEXT only NOT in tags:*/str_replace('e', 'EEE', substr($input, $outcome[$n][1], $outcome[$n][0]-$outcome[$n][1])).
	"\n<xmp>".
		/*Offsets to use to grab tag AFTER:*/substr($input, $outcome[$n][0], $outcome[$n+1][1]-$outcome[$n][0])
	."</xmp><hr />";
}print implode('', $output);}

$meaninglessText='This string begins with an <em>em tagged text</em> and <span><span></span></span>foo foo <strong>blod with <em>nested em</em></strong> and anchor to say: go <a href="http://www.dunno.com">click here to visit dunno.com</a> etc etc an image here <div style="text-align:center"><img src="fooem.gif" alt="" /> a photo caption</div> plus a break line <br /> and more text with this <strong><em>bold and em once</em></strong> and empty tag <strong></strong> and empty nested tags <strong><em></em></strong> true end here.';

usageExample($meaninglessText);

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