Sorting Massive amounts of Data

[Advo]

Hi there.

I've got some data currently stored in an Excel table, or a notepad
file depending on which would be easier to work with.. Im assuming
notepad(.txt) so that data can be read into php.

Anyway, this data is majorly corrupted and contains stuff i dont need.
For instance, a sample line is:

MNs73dd78INFORMATION I NEED 32427 12759 39384425 495242 15.206412
0.191214 44.164503 -93.993798

As you can see, its pretty messed up. I only need the "INFORMATION I
NEED" part, not the 9 characters before, nor any numbers or decimal
places afterwards.

I cant do this manually, as there are tens of thounsands of records.

Any ideas how I could go about this please.

Im assuming I would some how remove the first 9 characters, and then
some how remove all numbers and decimal places, but i've got no idea
how to go about it.

Kind Regards

[Moot]

Advo wrote:

Hi there.

I've got some data currently stored in an Excel table, or a notepad
file depending on which would be easier to work with.. Im assuming
notepad(.txt) so that data can be read into php.

Anyway, this data is majorly corrupted and contains stuff i dont need.
For instance, a sample line is:

MNs73dd78INFORMATION I NEED 32427 12759 39384425 495242 15.206412
0.191214 44.164503 -93.993798

As you can see, its pretty messed up. I only need the "INFORMATION I
NEED" part, not the 9 characters before, nor any numbers or decimal
places afterwards.

I cant do this manually, as there are tens of thounsands of records.

Any ideas how I could go about this please.

Im assuming I would some how remove the first 9 characters, and then
some how remove all numbers and decimal places, but i've got no idea
how to go about it.

Kind Regards

Open the file
Loop through each line with fgets [1]
Use substr [2] to yank out from character 9 to whatever you need
Dump data into an array or an output file as you see fit

Now, if the data in each line you need is variable length (you don't
say), then it becomes trickier. You may have to tokenize the line with
something like explode [3], then do some logic to get only the tokens
you want. Or you may be able to figure out a regular expression to
trim off the data to the right (I'll leave that to someone much wiser
than I). There has to be some kind of standard format to the file
which delimits each field (either that, or whoever set up this file
royally screwed up).

[1] - http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.fgets.php
[2] - http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.substr.php
[3] - http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.explode.php

[Sanders Kaufman]

Moot wrote:

Advo wrote:

>For instance, a sample line is:

MNs73dd78INFORMATION I NEED 32427 12759 39384425 495242 15.206412
0.191214 44.164503 -93.993798

Im assuming I would some how remove the first 9 characters, and then
some how remove all numbers and decimal places, but i've got no idea
how to go about it.

Kind Regards

Open the file
Loop through each line with fgets [1]
Use substr [2] to yank out from character 9 to whatever you need
Dump data into an array or an output file as you see fit

That's one way - but using RegEx would probably be
better... if you can figure out a *pattern* in the
corruption (e.g. first 9 characters, all numerals
after the last alpha character).

If you can't figure out a forumla/pattern - you'll
just have to do it manually. - no way around it.

[lorento]

Advo wrote:

>
MNs73dd78INFORMATION I NEED 32427 12759 39384425 495242 15.206412
0.191214 44.164503 -93.993798

As you can see, its pretty messed up. I only need the "INFORMATION I
NEED" part, not the 9 characters before, nor any numbers or decimal
places afterwards.

You can use regex maybe like this (not tested yet):

<?php

$fr = fopen ("data.txt", "r");
$fw = fopen ("data_clean.txt", "a");

while (!feof($fr))
{
$ln = fgets($fr, 1024);
$ln = preg_replace ("/^(\w{9})(.*)(\d+)/", "$2", $ln);
fwrite($fw, $ln);
}
fclose($fr);
fclose($fw);

?>

--
http://www.mastervb.net
http://www.theaussiemap.com

[malatestapunk]

Or you could do something like:

$matches = array();
$fileText = file_get_contents('data.txt'); // PHP4.3+
if (preg_match_all ('/^.{9}(SUBPATTERN_THAT_MATCHES_YOUR_DATA).*$/m',
$fileText, $matches)) {
// $matches now contains your data, in this format:
// $matches[0][0] - the whole first matched line
// $matches[0][1] - your data from the first matched line
// $matches[1][0] - the whole second matched line
// $matches[1][1] - your data from the second matched line
// ... and so on.
} else {
// Your search failed - nothing matched.
}

Note that you'll have to replace SUBPATTERN_THAT_MATCHES_YOUR_DATA with
a valid regular expression describing the data you'd like to extract.

lorento wrote:

Advo wrote:

MNs73dd78INFORMATION I NEED 32427 12759 39384425 495242 15.206412
0.191214 44.164503 -93.993798

As you can see, its pretty messed up. I only need the "INFORMATION I
NEED" part, not the 9 characters before, nor any numbers or decimal
places afterwards.

You can use regex maybe like this (not tested yet):

<?php

$fr = fopen ("data.txt", "r");
$fw = fopen ("data_clean.txt", "a");

while (!feof($fr))
{
$ln = fgets($fr, 1024);
$ln = preg_replace ("/^(\w{9})(.*)(\d+)/", "$2", $ln);
fwrite($fw, $ln);
}
fclose($fr);
fclose($fw);

?>

--
http://www.mastervb.net
http://www.theaussiemap.com