web scraping a website in php is not working

Question

I want to get the Currencies Table​​​ data from this link but I can't get the data in the table ... I had tried different ways but all in vain

the library that I'm using: https://sourceforge.net/projects/simplehtmldom/

here is the php code:

require "simple_html_dom.php";
$html = file_get_html("http://www.cibeg.com/English/Pages/CIBCurrencies.aspx");
$c = $html->find("#divCurrTableContainer",0)->innertext; 
echo $c;

Answer 1

How to find proper selector:

in Chrome Browser:

1. Press F12
2. Open Elements Tab
3. Select the html tag
4. Right click and go to copy then Copy selector

Your code should work with this selector: #divCurrTableContainer > table

$c=$html->find('#selector_here');
foreach($c as $element)
echo $element->innerText();

and as @nogad pointed, use API for live data...scrapping won't help in this type of data as its changing over time.

Some references:

Here some API that might help fixer.io and ask your google friend qry:Live Currency API

Answer 2

Here is the code that their site uses to get the information in that table:

  $.ajax({
        type: "POST",
        url: '/_layouts/15/LINKDev.CIB.CurrenciesFunds/FundsCurrencies.aspx/GetCurrencies',
        async: true,
        data: "{'lang':'" + document.getElementById("ctl00_ctl48_g_5d7fc52f_a66d_4aa2_8d6c_c01fb4b38cb2_hdnLang").value + "'}",
        contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
        dataType: "json",
        success: function (msg) {
            if (msg.d != null && msg.d.length > 0) {
                var contentHTML = "<table class='currTable' cellspacing='0' rules='all' style='border-width:0px;border-collapse:collapse;'>"
                        + "<tbody><tr class='currHeaderRow'>"
                            + "<th scope='col'>" + document.getElementById("ctl00_ctl48_g_5d7fc52f_a66d_4aa2_8d6c_c01fb4b38cb2_hdnCurrency").value + "</th><th scope='col'>" + document.getElementById("ctl00_ctl48_g_5d7fc52f_a66d_4aa2_8d6c_c01fb4b38cb2_hdnBuy").value + "</th><th scope='col'>" + document.getElementById("ctl00_ctl48_g_5d7fc52f_a66d_4aa2_8d6c_c01fb4b38cb2_hdnSell").value + "</th>"
                        + "</tr>";

                for (var i = 0; i < msg.d.length; i++) {
                    if (msg.d[i].CurrencyID.length > 0) {
                        contentHTML += "<tr class='currRow'>"
                                + "<td>" + msg.d[i].CurrencyID + "</td><td>" + msg.d[i].BuyRate + "</td><td class='lastCell'>" + msg.d[i].SellRate + "</td>"
                            + "</tr>";
                    }
                }
                contentHTML += "</tbody></table>";
                $("#divCurrTableContainer").html(contentHTML);
                if ($(".bannerElements").length > 0)
                    FixCurrenciesRatesScroll();
            }
        },
        error: function (msg) {
        }
    });

In php, we can replicate this request with curl:

<?php
$ch = curl_init('http://www.cibeg.com/_layouts/15/LINKDev.CIB.CurrenciesFunds/FundsCurrencies.aspx/GetCurrencies');

$data = array("lang" => "en");                                                                   

$data_string = json_encode($data);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, "POST");    
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data_string);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(                                                                          
  'Content-Type: application/json',                                                                                
  'Content-Length: ' . strlen($data_string))                                                                       

);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true); 
$server_output = curl_exec ($ch);

curl_close ($ch);
var_dump($server_output);

?>

paste this into http://phpfiddle.org/ and see the result you get back, which you'll have to parse with php