[SOLVED] splitting strings

[webent]

Hi, I was hoping someone might be able to tell me if the best way to split a string into multiple strings is to use split? I have read that using preg_split, str_split, and explode are often considered better... I am importing a csv file and one field in particular uses "|" to separate the categories... I need to be able to take the first section and make it say $var1, the second part, if there is one, and make it $var2, and the third part, if there is one, $var3 and throw away any that may follow...

 

Here is one of the field entries for instance, "consumer electronics|phone and telecom|headsets" So say,

$CATEGORIES = "consumer electronics|phone and telecom|headsets";
list($var1, $var2, $var3) = split('[|]', $CATEGORIES);

[ratcateme]

that looks file i don't think in this kind of application with only 3 parts you would get any better performance from one of the other functions

 

Scott.

[Zane]

I don't understand why you would want all those variable when you could just have a full array with keys

but two ways I can come up with are

 

1. Explode and Extract

//explode the the categories
$CATEGORIES = "consumer electronics|phone and telecom|headsets";
$cats = explode("|",$cats);
//then extract them all with a prefix "var"
extract($cats, "EXTR_PREFIX_ALL", "var");

 

2. Explode and Foreach it

//explode the categories
$CATEGORIES = "consumer electronics|phone and telecom|headsets";
$cats = explode("|",$cats);
//then loop through and create each variable
$i = 1;
foreach($cats as $cat) {
   $var{$i} = $cat;
   $i++;
}

 

The first one will make variables like this $var_x

[ratcateme]

what is wrong with his code?

 

Scott.

[Zane]

I never really said anything was wrong.

 

I don't even think I clearly understood the question.

If the question was..............

is your code good, then yes.

 

but you could probably just explode instead of split.

 

[webent]

I'm sorry if there was any confusion as to what I'm trying to do... I have to insert the split strings into the database under, product_line, product_master_category, and product_category fields...

 

Thank you all for your responses

[thebadbad]

Just use explode() instead of split(). From the manual:

 

If you don't require the power of regular expressions, it is faster to use explode(), which doesn't incur the overhead of the regular expression engine.

[webent]

Very good, I will do, thank you guys/gals for all of your help, I appreciate it.