Matching two strings

[leke]

Hi, For some I can't match these two strings...

 

$timestamp = mktime() + CURR_TIME_OFFSET * 3600;
$d = date('j', $timestamp);  
$m = date('n', $timestamp);  
$y = date('Y', $timestamp);
$isCancelledCheck = (string) "$y-$m-$d";
echo "Date: $isCancelledCheck is a " . gettype($isCancelledCheck) . "<br>";

$db_read = file('cancelled_dates.txt'); // read YYYY-MM-DD lines of file to an array.

foreach($db_read as $key => $val) {
    // iterate through each element of db_read
    if ($val == $isCancelledCheck){
        echo "<br> $val == $y-$m-$d";
    } else {
        echo "<br>Skipped $val";
    }    
}

print_r($db_read);
 

 

 

which returns...

 

Date: 2013-3-4 is a string

Skipped 2013-4-4 is a string
Skipped 2013-3-4 is a string
Skipped 2012-3-4 is a string
Skipped 2013-3-5 is a string
Skipped 2013-2-4 is a string

 

Array ( [0] => 2013-4-4 [1] => 2013-3-4 [2] => 2012-3-4 [3] => 2013-3-5 [4] => 2013-2-4 )

 

How come the string 2013-3-4 is not matched here?

 

Thanks.

[Jessica]

Try trimming the values.

trim

[Jessica]

Also you can use one call to date() with all three year month day.

[leke]

Thanks, trim() worked, and yeah, you were right about the date() thing too

 

Would it have been a \n that needed trimming on those array elements?

 

Thanks again

[Jessica]

You could try htmlentities() to see what was in there.

[leke]

You could try htmlentities() to see what was in there.

htmlentities didn't show any newline evidence, but I noticed in the source output, the elements are formatted with a newline so I guess they hang around when using file(). 

[Jessica]

that was definitely not the right function, no idea why I told you that. sorry.

 

I'm sure it's the newline.

[Christian F.]

When you really want to know exactly what a function contains, it is generally var_dump that you want to use. Add an echo "<pre>"; in front of it, or check the page source, to see all whitespace as well. (Browsers tends to collapse whitespace into a single space, after all.)

[Jessica]

I originally thought var_dump but I wasn't sure it would show the \n but I'm also trying to do two things at once right now.

 

Thanks Christian :-P

[Christian F.]

Hehe, you're most welcome.

*Christian bows with a theatrical gesture of his hand.

[Barand]

 

// read YYYY-MM-DD lines of file to an array.

 

so why are you formatting yours as YYYY-M-D

[leke]

so why are you formatting yours as YYYY-M-D

To be honest, I didn't really give it much thought I was just going with something that works quick, then I usually play with it and make some changes to the formatting based on problems I might foresee. I usually go with year month day as it's usually the most computer friendly format (along with being quite readable and international), but I also see I made an error in the comment writing mm-dd instead of m-d.

Edited March 4, 2013 by leke