Needles in Haystack, no idea how to parse / break apart...

[edwardtilbury]

Here's what I have...

 

A variable containing the following.

"This complete set include the following parts: (12345), (12346), (12347)"

 

How can I search this variable to pull out all the parts enclosed in parenthesis into an array?

 

Thanks!!!!!

 

[DeanWhitehouse]

explode ??

http://uk.php.net/explode

<?php
$var = "This complete set include the following parts: (12345), (12346), (12347)";
$var = explode("(",$var);
$var = str_replace(")","",$var);
print_r($var);
?>

[flyhoney]

Might be easier to do:

 

<?php
$numbers = array();
$subject = "This complete set include the following parts: (12345), (12346), (12347)";
$pattern = '/[\d]+/';
preg_match_all($pattern, $subject, $numbers);
print_r($numbers);
?>

[DeanWhitehouse]

Can i ask how that is easier?

[edwardtilbury]

!@#$@, I wasn't expecting an answer that fast, let alone three answers!

 

Amazing, I will try both of these out!

 

Thank you!!!

 

 

PS, the more answers to solve a problem the merrier!

[flyhoney]

Well, maybe not easier but possibly more fireproof.  If the structure of the string changes, the regular expression should still be able to pick out the numbers.

[DeanWhitehouse]

So should explode. Unless it changes too much

[flyhoney]

Here is the output of your solution:

Array
(
    [0] => This complete set include the following parts: 
    [1] => 12345, 
    [2] => 12346, 
    [3] => 12347
)

 

<3 <3 <3

[Mark Baker]

So should explode. Unless it changes too much

Although explode isn't picking out the numbers, it's picking out the content between the brackets. The regexp is explicitly picking out numbers wherever they appear in the haystack.

 

Both should achieve the same result given this haystack (although you might want to unshift the first element from the result array for the explode method).

It'd be interesting to see which was the faster of the two approaches

[Barand]

<?php

$var = "This complete set include the following parts: (12345), (12346), (12347)";
$k = strlen($var);
$p = $i = 0;
$parts = array();
$inside = 0;
while ($p < $k)
{
    switch ($ch = $var[$p])
    {
        case '(':
            $inside = 1;
            break;
        case ')':
            $inside = 0;
            ++$i;
            break;
        default:
            if ($inside) $parts[$i] .= $ch;
    }
    ++$p;
}

echo '<pre>', print_r($parts, true), '</pre>';
?>

-->
Array
(
    [0] => 12345
    [1] => 12346
    [2] => 12347
)

[flyhoney]

Regular expression are slow slow slow.  But I think it is irrelevant in this case.

[DeanWhitehouse]

Here is the output of your solution:

Yes but he won't be using print_r, yours will get any numbers ? am i right, even ones not inside of parenthesis?

Array ( [0] => This complete set include the following parts: [1] => 12345, [2] => 12346, [3] => 12347 )

To solve it he can do

<?php
$var = "This complete set include the following parts: (12345), (12346), (12347)";
$var = explode("(",$var);
$arr = array(")",",");
$var = str_replace($arr,"",$var);
for($i = 1;$i < count($var);$i++)
{
echo $var[$i]."<br>";
}
?>

[Mark Baker]

Regular expression are slow slow slow.

Often said, less often true.

 

Testing the following two variants on a function last week:

function coordinateFromString($pCoordinateString = 'A1') {
    $column = rtrim($pCoordinateString, '0..9');
    $row = ltrim($pCoordinateString, 'A..Z');
    return array($column,$row);
}

 

function coordinateFromString($pCoordinateString = 'A1') {
    $column = '';
    $row = '';
    if (preg_match("/([$]?[A-Z]+)([$]?\d+)/", $pCoordinateString, $matches)) {
        list(, $column, $row) = $matches;
    }
    return array($column, $row);
}

The preg_match variant not only returned correct values in all cases (with inputs in the formats "IV123", "$IV123", "IV$123", "$IV$123") but also performed faster as well.

[.josh]

I am obviously the winner here.

 

<?php
$var = "This complete set include the following parts: (12345), (12346), (12347)";
$n = 1;
$p = false;
for ($x = 0; $x < strlen($var); $x++) {
   if (is_numeric(substr($var,$x,1))) {
    $nums[$n] .= substr($var,$x,1);
	  $p = true;
   } else {
    $p = false;
      $n++;
 }
}
$nums = array_values($nums);
print_r($nums);
?>

[DeanWhitehouse]

Let's let edwardtilbury decide who is the winner

 

So who's code are you going to use?

[.josh]

It's no contest. I won, end of story.  I mean, I have sh!t in there I don't even know what it's there for.  You just can't beat that!

[flyhoney]

Yeah I spent a good 5 minutes trying to figure out what all the $p = boolean business was doing.  It's a very nice solution though.

 

Cleaned up a lil:

 

<?php
$var = "This complete set include the following parts: (12345), (12346), (12347)";
for ($x = 0; $x < strlen($var); $x++) {
if (is_numeric($var[$x])) {
	$nums[$n] .= $var[$x];
} else {
	$n++;
}
}
$nums = array_values($nums);
print_r($nums);
?>

[.josh]

haha it was supposed to be used to decide whether to inc $n or not but I decided who cares just array_values it and then forgot to take it out. 

[edwardtilbury]

I tried the solutions, but then realized that I present the wrong haystack! ::)DOH! So I cannot pick a winner yet.

 

 

 

You guys are too helpful!

 

Ok, I made a mistake, I checked the database, and actually it's a little more complicated... ???

 

The variable has numbers and text, also the needles are not separated uniformly.

 

 

 

Please solve for this new haystack...

 

Haystack 2.0

This 19th century easter egg basket includes the following parts: A giant robot from the year 2008 (12345), Left window trim for a 1993-2001 Lexus SC400 (12346), and a 1/6th scale papier-mache head of Ron Paul made from native indians in Luxembourg(12347)

 

 

[DeanWhitehouse]

if you are just wanting to get the numbers in parenthesis's then my solution should work.

[.josh]

@flyhoney: Anyways, dunno about it being a "very nice" solution... I personally would opt for the regex route. I was just being silly.

 

And on that note...

I tried the solutions, but then realized that I present the wrong haystack! ::)DOH! So I cannot pick a winner yet.

 

 

 

You guys are too helpful!

 

Ok, I made a mistake, I checked the database, and actually it's a little more complicated... ???

 

The variable has numbers and text, also the needles are not separated uniformly.

 

Haystack 2.0

This 19th century easter egg basket includes the following parts: A giant robot from the year 2008 (12345), Left window trim for a 1993-2001 Lexus SC400 (12346), and a 1/6th scale papier-mache head of Ron Paul made from native indians in Luxembourg

 

 

Use the regex solution just alter it to only grab numbers between parenthesis.

[flyhoney]

Like this:

 

<?php
$numbers = array();
$subject = 'This 19th century easter egg basket includes the following parts: A giant robot from the year 2008 (12345), Left window trim for a 1993-2001 Lexus SC400 (12346), and a 1/6th scale papier-mache head of Ron Paul made from native indians in Luxembourg';
$pattern = '/\(([\d]+)\)/';
preg_match_all($pattern, $subject, $numbers);
$numbers = array_pop($numbers);
print_r($numbers);
?>

 

I was being facetious .  Either way, it is a creative solution.

[Barand]

Mine still works

Array
(
    [0] => 12345
    [1] => 12346
)

[DeanWhitehouse]

No.....! mine is simplest, he can edit it easily and doesn't need to know regex

 

Or not, lol, just tested it.

Regex is the best way unless you want a even more complex code.

[flyhoney]

Also, wtf?

 

and a 1/6th scale papier-mache head of Ron Paul made from native indians in Luxembourg