regular expression

[sandy1028]

How to  write a regular expression  to read all the contents from {AUTHOR} to starting of another '{'

 

{AUTHOR}
author1
staff1
{HEADLINE}
DISPOSABLE DECOR: THE CUTTING EDGE DULLS FAST\
STYLE AT A SPEED
USUALLY ASSOCIATED WITH WARDROBE ITEMS.

[Michdd]

/\{AUTHOR\}(.+?)\{/

Should work.

[sandy1028]

This doesnot work.

 

[wildteen88]

Use

{AUTHOR}([^{]+)

 

Example:

$text = '{AUTHOR}
author1
staff1
{HEADLINE}
DISPOSABLE DECOR: THE CUTTING EDGE DULLS FAST\
STYLE AT A SPEED
USUALLY ASSOCIATED WITH WARDROBE ITEMS.';

preg_match('~{AUTHOR}([^{]+)~is', $text, $matches);

echo nl2br(trim($matches[1]));

[sandy1028]

<?php
$file = fopen("welcome.txt", "r") or exit("Unable to open file!");
while(!feof($file)){

preg_match('~{AUTHOR}([^{]+)~is', $_, $matches);
echo nl2br(trim($matches[1]));
}

 

Why the code hangs.....

In welcome.txt, I have written the $text contents to file called welcome.txt

[.josh]

preg_match('~\{AUTHOR\}([^{]*)~is', $file, $matches);

[sandy1028]

The below code works fine if i write the $text in the same file.

 

$text = '{AUTHOR}
author1
staff1
{HEADLINE}
DISPOSABLE DECOR: THE CUTTING EDGE DULLS FAST\
STYLE AT A SPEED
USUALLY ASSOCIATED WITH WARDROBE ITEMS.

';

preg_match('~{AUTHOR}([^{]+)~is', $text, $matches);

echo nl2br(trim($matches[1]));

 

If I write the $text in a file called new.txt

{AUTHOR}
author1
staff1
{HEADLINE}
DISPOSABLE DECOR: THE CUTTING EDGE DULLS FAST\
STYLE AT A SPEED
USUALLY ASSOCIATED WITH WARDROBE ITEMS.
{AUTHOR}
author2
staff2
{HEADLINE}

 

and the below code doesnot print the same value as above

 

<?php
$fcontents = file ('new.txt');
while (list($line,$str) = each( $fcontents ))  {
preg_match('~{AUTHOR}([^{]+)~is', $str, $matches);
echo nl2br(trim($matches[1]));
}

?>

 

It doesnot work and it doesnot print all the values between {AUTHOR} and first {}

 

 

[.josh]

that's because file grabs the contents of the file and creates an array where each line is an element.  Which you then turn around and go through each line, but then try to preg_match as if it were the whole file, not the line.  Just use file_get_contents and the regex.

[sandy1028]

$fcontents = file_get_contents('welcome.txt');
preg_match_all('~{AUTHOR}([^{]+)~is', $fcontents, $matches);
echo nl2br(trim($matches[1]));

 

It prints an array.

 

welcome.txt contains

 

{AUTHOR}
author1
staff1
{HEADLINE}
DISPOSABLE DECOR: THE CUTTING EDGE DULLS FAST\
STYLE AT A SPEED
USUALLY ASSOCIATED WITH WARDROBE ITEMS.
{AUTHOR}
author2
staff2
{HEADLINE}

 

 

How to just print the output of preg_match_all

 

 

[.josh]

it prints 'array' because preg_match_all returns an array.  And you have more than one author to match.  No offense, but if you would bother to take 2 seconds to read the manual entries on these functions, you wouldn't be asking these questions.  I know you probably think you're giving it all you've got, but you've got to try harder, because if that's all you've got, you're going to constantly be struggling and maybe programming isn't for you.

 

You can't echo an array, because an array is not the same as a variable.  You have to either loop through the array and echo each individual element, or else dump it all out with something like print_r

[wildteen88]

EDIT: CV beat me

preg_match_all will return an array of matches ($matches). You'll have to loop through the array.

 

preg_match_all('~{AUTHOR}([^{]+)~is', $fcontents, $matches);

foreach($matches[1] as $match)
{
   echo nl2br(trim($match)) . '<br />';
}

[sandy1028]

<?php
$fcontents = file_get_contents('file.txt');
preg_match_all('~{AUTHOR}([^{]+)~is', $fcontents, $matches);

foreach($matches[1] as $match)
{
   echo nl2br(trim($match)) . '<br />';
}
?>

 

 

This works with the small file.....

 

If the run the script on large file and redirect the to file gives out the message

 

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 261125730 bytes) in filename.php

[wildteen88]

What is the large file?

 

However just so you know why you're getting the error message your script is exceeding the maximum memory limit, which is 128MB. However you script is trying to use up to 250MB!

[sandy1028]

Is there any way to optimise the code and print the result to the file which doesnot consume more memory.