Reading Columns from a Text file.

[vidyashankara]

Lets say i have a text file. It contains

[code]
ATOM 1009 N L U A 163 37.984 -12.158 -19.748 1.00 78.45
ATOM 2700 CG ASP B  164 82.383 0.302 48.606 1.00110.37    
ATOM 2701 OD1 ASP B  168 82.019 0.628 49.756 1.00110.37    
[/code]

I want the script to count the Number of A or B in the 5th column.

Currently i exploded the file into lines and i called it with a for function to read the 5th column. The code is

[code]
$array = explode("\n",atom.txt);
for ($i=0; $i<count($array); $i++) {
   preg_match_all("/([^ \r\n]+)(?:[ ]+)*/", $array[$i], $n);
   $atom[$i] = $n[1];
   $atoms[$i] = $n[1][3];    
}

$atoms = array_unique($atoms);
sort($atoms);
[/code]

This does the job. But if you look carefully at the text file, it contains lines like

[code]
ATOM   1009  N   L U A 163      37.984 -12.158 -19.748  1.00 78.45           N  
[/code]

Where A is not the 5th column but the 6th, There is a space between L and U. In this case, It select U instead of A and reports it, which is wrong.

Can i make the script read from the 21st column of the text file? (each letter is in one column)

How do i do that?

Thanks
Vidyashankra.

[dkphp2]

That would be even easier, use substr():

substr($str, 21, 1); // this gives you the 21st character for each line.

[vidyashankara]

[!--quoteo(post=384027:date=Jun 14 2006, 06:47 PM:name=dkphp2)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(dkphp2 @ Jun 14 2006, 06:47 PM) [snapback]384027[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--]
That would be even easier, use substr():

substr($str, 21, 1); // this gives you the 21st character for each line.
[/quote]


Thanks a lot! that did the job. so simple!