How do I get the middle of a string?

[kingdon]

I have a question. If I have a string like this...

$a = "I don't need this @This is the middle I need # This is the end I don't need";

Does anyone know the command that would let me get "This is the middle I need" out of this string and put it into $b?

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Don

[blade_in_exile]

why would you need to pull the centre out of this line, if you set up your html/php code correctly it could be on its own therefore no need to pull it out of the $a

[kingdon]

I have a database of full names such as "Michael Ian Black". I want to extract "Ian" from this string. Bascially I want to know the commands to strip "Michael " from this string by searching for the first space. Then have something like this.

$a = "Michael Ian Black";
$b = "Ian Black";

Then I want to search for the first space again and strip everything after it.

$b = "Ian Black";
$c = "Ian";

Does anyone know the commands for this or can write a simple code to show me how to do this?

Thanks
Don

[ronverdonk]

If you always know what your separators are, the following function will do.

[PHP]
<?php
$a = "I don't need this @This is the middle I need # This is the end I don't need";
if ($b = extractit($a, '@', '#'))
echo $b;
else
echo 'Not found';

// the above will return: This is the middle I need
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// specify: string, start separator, close separator
function extractit($string, $s, $e) {
if ($start=strpos($string, $s)) {
if ($end=strpos(substr($string,$start+1), $e)) {
return substr($string, $start+1, $end-1);
}
else {
return false;
}
}
return false;
}
?>
[/PHP]

Ronald :cool:

[kingdon]

Ronald,

I get an error when I use that command. Any other ideas or do you know why I would get that error?

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: extractit()

[ronverdonk]

You must have copied/pasted something wrong from the forum entry. It is a normal PHP function. Reworked outside a function it is as follows:
[PHP]<?php
$a = "I don't need this @This is the middle I need # This is the end I don't need";
if ($start=strpos($a, '@')) {
if ($end=strpos(substr($a,$start+1), '#')) {
$b = substr($a, $start+1, $end-1);
echo $b;
}
else {
echo 'end-separator not found';
}
}
else
echo 'start-separator not found';
?>[/PHP]
Ronald :cool:

[kingdon]

Ronald,

You are right. I must of copied something wrong. I just tried it and it worked. Thank you very much. You saved me hours of trying to figure this out.

Dean

[ronverdonk]

A last word on this: I asume you use the @ and # just to be able to distinguish between the first and last separator. You could also use just one standard separator, like @.

That way you can use the PHP explode() function. And then the code would be alot easier, such as:

[PHP]<?php
$a = "I don't need this @This is the middle I need.@ This is the end I don't need";
$parts = explode("@", $a)
echo $parts[0] // results in: I don't need this
echo $parts[1] // results in: This is the middle I need.
echo $parts[2] // results in: This is the end I don't need
?>[/PHP]
Keep cool!

Ronald :cool:

[kingdon]

Actually I needed 2 separate separators in this case. But I may be able to use your other example in the future.

Thanks again
Dean