preg_match_all nested html text

I am trying to get the text between nested html tags within arrays produced by preg_match_all. The simple situation would be: <tr><td>test</td></tr> I want to return 'test'. Assuming $post_results has some string derived from a html page source with lots of nested tags. Replacing new line (seems to be a good idea to do this): $post_results = ereg_replace("[\n\r]", " ", $post_results); I tried this: $pattern = "/<[^>]*>(.+)<\/[^>]*>/i"; Explanation (as far as I understand, please feel free to correct): /.../ start end < - opening html tag [^>] end tag * any number of same

end tag - don't understand why needed in addition to above (.+) group: any number of any characters

< opening tag \/ literal forward slash [^>] end with tag end * any number of same

end tag - don't know why needed again i - modifier, can't remember what it means, something like case insensitive, yes, that would be it

      //Main expression for first try, substituting tags:

preg_match_all($pattern,$post_results,$outputs); //this only replaces the outer tag eg <tr>, not the <td>, so: while(stristr($outputs[0][1],"<")) { preg_match_all($pattern,$outputs[0][1],$outputs,PREG_PATTERN_ORDER); } Is there a neat expression to get the inner text withing nested html tags? Thanks, John