title: What's the easiest way to extract a piece of data from HTML in PHP?
body: <p>I'm working with a small subset of mostly invalid HTML, and I need to extract a small piece of data. Given the fact that most of "markup" isn't valid, I don't think that loading everything into a DOM is a good option. Moreover, it seems like a lot of overhead for this simple case.</p>
  
  <p>Here's an example of the markup that I have:</p>
  
  <pre><code>(a bunch of invalid markup here with unclosed tags, etc.)
  &lt;TD&gt;&lt;span&gt;Something (random text here)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/TD&gt;
  (a bunch more invalid markup here with more unclosed tags.)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The <code>&lt;TD&gt;&lt;span&gt;Something (random text here)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/TD&gt;</code> portion does not repeat itself anywhere in the document, so I believe a simple regex would do the trick.</p>
  
  <p>However, I'm terrible with regular expressions. </p>
  
  <p>Should I use a regular expression? Is there a more simple way to do this? If possible, I'd just like to extract the text after Something, the (random text here) portion.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks in advance!</p>
  
  <p>Edit -</p>
  
  <p>Exact example of the HTML (I've omitted the stuff prior, which is the invalid markup that the vendor uses. It's irrelevant for this example, I believe):</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;div class="FormTable"&gt;
          &lt;TABLE&gt;
          &lt;TR&gt;
                  &lt;TD colspan="2"&gt;In order to proceed with login operation please 
                  answer on the security question below&lt;/TD&gt;
          &lt;/TR&gt;
          &lt;TR&gt;
                  &lt;TD colspan="2"&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/TD&gt;
          &lt;/TR&gt;
          &lt;TR&gt;
                  &lt;TD&gt;&lt;label class="FormLabel"&gt;Security Question&lt;/label&gt;&lt;/TD&gt;
                  &lt;TD&gt;&lt;span&gt;What is your city of birth?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/TD&gt;
          &lt;/TR&gt;
          &lt;TR&gt;
                  &lt;TD&gt;&lt;label class="FormLabel"&gt;Answer&lt;/label&gt;&lt;/TD&gt;
                  &lt;TD&gt;&lt;INPUT name="securityAnswer" class="input" type="password" value=""&gt;&lt;/TD&gt;
          &lt;/TR&gt;
          &lt;/TABLE&gt;
  &lt;/div&gt;  
  </code></pre>