Parse nightmare

[Michael Willcocks]

I have a 1200 line text file with information that I need in the following
format.
FIGURE>SAMEFIGURE=NUMBER>SAMENUMBER=CHANNELNAME">S AMECHANNELNAME<DELETE

I want to break it down into this format.
$figure > $figure = $number > $number = $channel ">
$channel < the rest can be deleted
my way (not a lot of experience with this sort of problem..
don't laugh)

explode (">", $exFigure);
$figure = $exFigure[0];

explode ("=", $number);
$figure = $exFigure[1];
// then chop out after the >
And so on..
Would there be a better way I could learn...?

Thanks alot in advance

Mike.

[Dmitry Ruban]

Hello Mike,

Try to use regular expressions.
For exmaple:
pref_match ( "/([^>]+)>([^=]+)=(\d+)>(\d+)=([^\"]+)\"/", $exFigure,
$matches );
$matches[1] = FIGURE
$matches[2] = SAMEFIGURE
$matches[3] = NUMBER
$matches[4] = SAMENUMBER
$matches[5] = CHANNELNAME

Excuse my bad pattern, im hurry :)

Dima

I have a 1200 line text file with information that I need in the following
format.
FIGURE>SAMEFIGURE=NUMBER>SAMENUMBER=CHANNELNAME">S AMECHANNELNAME<DELETE

I want to break it down into this format.
$figure > $figure = $number > $number = $channel ">
$channel < the rest can be deleted
my way (not a lot of experience with this sort of problem..
don't laugh)

explode (">", $exFigure);
$figure = $exFigure[0];

explode ("=", $number);
$figure = $exFigure[1];
// then chop out after the >
And so on..
Would there be a better way I could learn...?

Thanks alot in advance

Mike.

[Andy Hassall]

On Wed, 8 Oct 2003 16:45:59 -0700, "Michael Willcocks"
<mi*****@metrogroup.com.au> wrote:

I have a 1200 line text file with information that I need in the following
format.
FIGURE>SAMEFIGURE=NUMBER>SAMENUMBER=CHANNELNAME"> SAMECHANNELNAME<DELETE

I want to break it down into this format.
$figure > $figure = $number > $number = $channel ">
$channel < the rest can be deleted
my way (not a lot of experience with this sort of problem..
don't laugh)

explode (">", $exFigure);
$figure = $exFigure[0];

explode ("=", $number);
$figure = $exFigure[1];
// then chop out after the >
And so on..

Would there be a better way I could learn...?

Using explode here sounds quite reasonable; so long as the delimiter is never
part of the data, there's no real need to use anything more complicated.

--
Andy Hassall (an**@andyh.co.uk) icq(5747695) (http://www.andyh.co.uk)
Space: disk usage analysis tool (http://www.andyhsoftware.co.uk/space)

[Michael Willcocks]

Thank you both for your input
Thanks alot seems to be working.
I have never used the pattern method because any time I have seen it in
use... It looks a little scary.

"Andy Hassall" <an**@andyh.co.uk> wrote in message
news:2s********************************@4ax.com...

On Wed, 8 Oct 2003 16:45:59 -0700, "Michael Willcocks"
<mi*****@metrogroup.com.au> wrote:

I have a 1200 line text file with information that I need in the followingformat.
FIGURE>SAMEFIGURE=NUMBER>SAMENUMBER=CHANNELNAME"> SAMECHANNELNAME<DELETE

I want to break it down into this format.
$figure > $figure = $number > $number = $channel ">
$channel < the rest can be deleted
my way (not a lot of experience with this sort of problem..
don't laugh)

explode (">", $exFigure);
$figure = $exFigure[0];

explode ("=", $number);
$figure = $exFigure[1];
// then chop out after the >
And so on..

Would there be a better way I could learn...?
Using explode here sounds quite reasonable; so long as the delimiter is

never part of the data, there's no real need to use anything more complicated.

--
Andy Hassall (an**@andyh.co.uk) icq(5747695) (http://www.andyh.co.uk)
Space: disk usage analysis tool (http://www.andyhsoftware.co.uk/space)