What are the best practices for extracting specific attributes from HTML elements in PHP?

When extracting specific attributes from HTML elements in PHP, it is best practice to use a DOM parser like PHP's built-in DOMDocument class. This allows for easy traversal and manipulation of HTML elements. To extract specific attributes, you can use methods like getAttribute() or getAttributeNode(). By using a DOM parser, you can ensure that your code is more robust and reliable when dealing with HTML content.

// Example code snippet using DOMDocument to extract specific attributes from HTML elements

$html = '<div id="example" class="container">Hello, World!</div>';

$dom = new DOMDocument();
$dom->loadHTML($html);

$element = $dom->getElementById('example');
if($element) {
    $class = $element->getAttribute('class');
    echo $class; // Output: container
}