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Doc Bug #78252 Report a miss information in `Return Values` section of getElementsByTagName
Submitted: 2019-07-05 08:45 UTC Modified: 2019-07-06 10:50 UTC
From: dangtu dot work at gmail dot com Assigned:
Status: Not a bug Package: DOM XML related
PHP Version: 7.3.7 OS: Windows 10
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
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 [2019-07-05 08:45 UTC] dangtu dot work at gmail dot com
Description:
------------
---
From manual page: https://php.net/domdocument.getelementsbytagname
---

There is a miss information in `Return Values` section of DOMDocument::getElementsByTagName. In the section, it only said:

> A new DOMNodeList object containing all the matched elements

But no info about what will return if no matched elements found!

A sandbox come with result:
http://sandbox.onlinephpfunctions.com/code/3b0f001e462a223188defd42554c8401b3626f8b

Test script:
---------------
<?php
$html = <<< HTML
<article id="p73" class="p-quote">
Albert Einstein’s Quotes Collection
<blockquote><p>Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.</p></blockquote>
</article>
HTML;

class ExtractTag {
	private $doc = null;

	public function __construct($html) {
		$this->doc = new DomDocument();
		$content = mb_convert_encoding(
			$html,
			'HTML-ENTITIES',
			'UTF-8'
		);
		@$this->doc->loadHTML($content);
	}

	private function getFirstTag($tag) {
		return $this->doc->getElementsByTagName($tag)->item(0);
	}
	private function printFirstTag($tag) {
		$firstTag = $this->getFirstTag($tag);
		echo $this->doc->saveHTML($firstTag);
	}

	public function print_image() {
		$this->printFirstTag('img');
	}
	public function print_quote() {
		$this->printFirstTag('blockquote');
	}

}

$dom = new ExtractTag($html);
echo $dom->print_quote(); #Expect to see a <blockquote>
echo $dom->print_image(); #Expect to see nothing since there is no <img> tag in the html!

Expected result:
----------------
The `Return Values` should be wrote like this:

If matched elements found, the method will return a new DOMNodeList object containing all the matched elements. If nothing found, a DOMDocument itself will be returned.


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 [2019-07-05 09:04 UTC] requinix@php.net
-Status: Open +Status: Not a bug
 [2019-07-05 09:04 UTC] requinix@php.net
->item(0) is null so saveHTML() will export the entire document.
 [2019-07-05 11:55 UTC] cmb@php.net
> If nothing found, a DOMDocument itself will be returned.

No.  If no element is found, ::getElementsByTagName() returns a
DOMNodeList with zero items, see <https://3v4l.org/Pluib>.
 [2019-07-06 10:12 UTC] dangtu dot work at gmail dot com
Thanks for you explanation, @cmb and @requinix.
But don't you think we should clarify the `Return Values` section? Let me rephrase the change:

> The function always returns DOMNodeList object. However, if no elements found, DOMNodeList will be returned with zero item and it will be considered as falsy values in conditional statement.
 [2019-07-06 10:50 UTC] requinix@php.net
> it will be considered as falsy values in conditional statement
No, an empty DOMNodeList is not considered to be falsy. https://3v4l.org/sVuiD
 [2019-07-06 11:52 UTC] dangtu dot work at gmail dot com
My bad, I was accidentally pass it with `item()` method without realize it. Sorry.
 
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