[SOLVED] Replacing single letters with sentence?

[mikebyrne]

I have a file that looks something like the following:

 

D,2796,Son,Oler,13 Dun Bnn,Bch Road,Ahy,Co.Kire

S,2797,Gerty,Laurce,15  Dun Brn,Bleach ad,Ahy,Co.Kilde

L,2801,Mazse,Saras,17  Dn Brn,Blch Rod,Aty,Co.Kilre

E,2808,Esjo,Leel,21  Dun Bnn,Blach Road,Ay,Co.Kilre

 

What I am trying to do is replace the single character letters "D","S","L" & "E" with the following sentences

 

Dail European Parliament and Local Elections only  (instead of D)

 

European Parliament and Local Elections only (instead of E)

 

Local Elections only (instead of L)

 

Post or special arrangement only (instead of S)

 

Is it possible to code this instead of manually replacing them??

 

Ideally I would like the output to pass into a new file

[Yesideez]

preg_replace('^D','Dail European Parliament and Local Elections only');
preg_replace('^S','Post or special arrangement only');
preg_replace('^L','Local Elections only');
preg_replace('^E','European Parliament and Local Elections only');

 

That might work (my first attempt at regex) but if you're parsing the CSV file then just replace the first element.

switch ($element[0]) {
  case 'D':$element[0]='Dail European Parliament and Local Elections only';break;
  case 'S':$element[0]='Post or special arrangement only';break;
  //...and so-on
}

[mikebyrne]

Im a little confused as to which one to try?

 

Also how do I code so it takes in the file and outputs to another?

 

ps thanks for the help so far!

[mikebyrne]

Anymore help on this matter would be great

[blueman378]

The thing is you are asking us to code the whole thing for you without showing any attempt at doing it yourself.

 

You will not be given more help unless:

a) you post in the freelance section

b) you atleast attempt to wrote it yourself then come back when you have a problem.

 

Matt

[mikebyrne]

No, as stated in my last post Im just asking for advice on which option to go with the preg replace or by using the switch

[mikebyrne]

I've tried with the following code

 

<?php
$fields=file('C:\Users\Mike\Desktop\AthyDB.txt');
    foreach($fields as $i=>$field)
    {
	$field=preg_replace('^D','Dail European Parliament and Local Elections only');
	$field=preg_replace('^S','Post or special arrangement only');
	$field=preg_replace('^L','Local Elections only');
	$field=preg_replace('^E','European Parliament and Local Elections only');
       $fields[$i]=$field;
    }
    file_put_contents('C:\Users\Mike\Desktop\test.txt',implode("\r",$fields));
?>

 

 

 

 

but im getting the following error

 

 

Warning: Wrong parameter count for preg_replace() in C:\xampp\htdocs\replace.php on line 5

 

Warning: Wrong parameter count for preg_replace() in C:\xampp\htdocs\replace.php on line 6

 

Warning: Wrong parameter count for preg_replace() in C:\xampp\htdocs\replace.php on line 7

 

Warning: Wrong parameter count for preg_replace() in C:\xampp\htdocs\replace.php on line 8

[mikebyrne]

Cant see where I'm going wrong with this??

[blueman378]

Read this

[mikebyrne]

Thanks, very useful

 

I've tried that and it seemed to lean towards an older version of php being the issue but im all up to date

[deadonarrival]

http://uk2.php.net/str_replace

 

str_replace() might work better if you just run it on the one character field. No regex needed.

 

$var = str_replace("{char}","{full text}",$var);

[blueman378]

basically you have to pass it the string you want it to run on.

without showing any attempt at doing it yourself

(didnt mean to sound harsh jut explaining the reason why you were not getiing any more help, no code = no help as a general rule)

 

but anyway try this

 

differnt to yours cause its not using an array but hey if it works

 

<?php
$rewrote = "";
$handle = fopen("C:\Users\Mike\Desktop\AthyDB.txt", "r+"); // Open file to read it read.

if ($handle) {
while (!feof($handle)) // Loop til end of file.
{
$currentline = fgets($handle, 4096); // Read a line.
$currentline=preg_replace('^D','Dail European Parliament and Local Elections only', $currentline);
$currentline=preg_replace('^S','Post or special arrangement only', $currentline));
$currentline=preg_replace('^L','Local Elections only', $currentline));
$currentline=preg_replace('^E','European Parliament and Local Elections only', $currentline));
$rewrote .= $currentline;
$rewrote .= "\n";
}
file_put_contents('C:\Users\Mike\Desktop\test.txt');
fclose($handle);
}

?>

 

Please make a backup of your file first as this is untested and may create unintention bugs.

 

[blueman378]

thats better jsut had to change something.

 

[mikebyrne]

No problem Blueman378 it was just frustrating me

 

I'll try the code out in a bit, I'm just away from the other pc

 

[mikebyrne]

with ths code

 

<?php
$rewrote = "";
$handle = fopen("C:\Users\Mike\Desktop\AthyDB.txt", "r+"); // Open file to read it read.

if ($handle) {
while (!feof($handle)) // Loop til end of file.
{
$currentline = fgets($handle, 4096); // Read a line.
$currentline=preg_replace('^D','Dail European Parliament and Local Elections only', $currentline);
$currentline=preg_replace('^S','Post or special arrangement only', $currentline));
$currentline=preg_replace('^L','Local Elections only', $currentline));
$currentline=preg_replace('^E','European Parliament and Local Elections only', $currentline));
$rewrote .= $currentline;
$rewrote .= "\n";
}
file_put_contents('C:\Users\Mike\Desktop\test.txt');
fclose($handle);
}
?>

 

Im getting a parse error "Parse error: parse error in C:\xampp\htdocs\letters.php on line 10"

 

Line 10 is $currentline=preg_replace('^S','Post or special arrangement only', $currentline));

 

[Yesideez]

You've got two brackets at the end of three of those lines when you should only have one - should be like this:

$currentline=preg_replace('^S','Post or special arrangement only', $currentline);
$currentline=preg_replace('^L','Local Elections only', $currentline);
$currentline=preg_replace('^E','European Parliament and Local Elections only', $currentline);

[mikebyrne]

Sorry! Good spot

 

Im now getting the error

 

Warning: preg_replace() [function.preg-replace]: No ending delimiter '^' found in C:\xampp\htdocs\letters.php on line 9

 

Warning: preg_replace() [function.preg-replace]: No ending delimiter '^' found in C:\xampp\htdocs\letters.php on line 10

 

Warning: preg_replace() [function.preg-replace]: No ending delimiter '^' found in C:\xampp\htdocs\letters.php on line 11

 

Warning: preg_replace() [function.preg-replace]: No ending delimiter '^' found in C:\xampp\htdocs\letters.php on line 12

 

Should the code  be '^S,' or something??  (No I just tried it!)

[Yesideez]

Try changing them to include /'s

/^S/

etc.

 

regex isn't really my thing - learning as much here myself

[mikebyrne]

Sorry, what do you mean by changing them to include /'s??

[Yesideez]

Like this...

$currentline=preg_replace('/^S/','Post or special arrangement only', $currentline);

You'll have to do that for each line

[mikebyrne]

That seems to have fixed that issue but im now getting the error

 

Warning: file_put_contents() expects at least 2 parameters, 1 given in C:\xampp\htdocs\letters.php on line 16

 

Line 16 is

 

file_put_contents('C:\Users\Mike\Desktop\test.txt');

[Yesideez]

http://uk.php.net/file_put_contents

 

Your line of code would require the data to written out as the second parameter after the filename.

[mikebyrne]

I've changed it to

<?php
$rewrote = "";
$handle = fopen("C:\Users\Mike\Desktop\AthyDB.txt", "r+"); // Open file to read it read.

if ($handle) {
while (!feof($handle)) // Loop til end of file.
{
$currentline = fgets($handle, 4096); // Read a line.
$currentline=preg_replace('/^D/','Dail European Parliament and Local Elections only', $currentline);
$currentline=preg_replace('/^S/','Post or special arrangement only', $currentline);
$currentline=preg_replace('/^L/','Local Elections only', $currentline);
$currentline=preg_replace('/^E/','European Parliament and Local Elections only', $currentline);
$rewrote .= $currentline;
$rewrote .= "\n";
}
file_put_contents('C:\Users\Mike\Desktop\test.txt', $rewrote);
fclose($handle);
}
?>

 

And it is now working! Thanks for all the help!!

[Yesideez]

Glad to see you got it sorted in the end!