Not quite getting it - Please help

[sysengrnz]

Hi Guys - I'm very new to PHP and I have been reading for quite some time but I'm not quite understanding a specific component.

 

Basically what I am trying to achieve is; [Not sure how to put it in english so I'll step through what I am doing initially in list form;]

 

1. I run a script which outputs a generically 6x lines of text (Will always be 6 lines) followed by outputting "a variable" amount of rows which contain data which I would like to store as individual variables which are parsed into an array which I can then use to pull and insert in to a specific MYSQL database.

 

The way that the text file is layed out seems very straight forward; I.E...

15 columns containing data

11 columns containing no data / blank / spacial seperators

Variable amount of rows

Each column has a specific "descriptor" - name of the colum/purpose

 

My current script is below - starting it off; - Using it for self learning purposes

 

<?php

 

//Defines a variable for the results file I'm pulling information from;

 

$myFile = "./'results file here.txt'";

 

// Define a variable and the string that is pulled from line 8 in the results file will be outputted

 

$row1 = file($myFile); //Pulls First Row of the specific file

echo $lines[8]; // Line 8

?>

 

 What I am hoping to do is some how produce a regular expression which will create a variable dynamically depending on the amount of rows that are present and add that content to an array. From here I would like to pull the specific column values from each row and output them in to a new array which I can then use to drop the column and row information in to the MYSQL Database.

 

The main question is - Is this an unorthadox over complicated way of achieving something that potentially could be done using an export/import type function within PHP? The last thing I would like to see is me trying to script an EXPORT function which has already been created for this exact purpose

 

Any assistance would be hugely appreciated - sorry if this makes no sense.

 

 

Thanks

 

A

 

 

 

 

 

[litebearer]

just a thought...

rather than

<?php

 

//Defines a variable for the results file I'm pulling information from;

 

$myFile = "./'results file here.txt'";

 

// Define a variable and the string that is pulled from line 8 in the results file will be outputted

 

$row1 = file($myFile); //Pulls First Row of the specific file

echo $lines[8]; // Line 8

?>

try this

<?php
$myFile = "FILE NAME AND PATH HERE"; /* no need for the single quotes */
$lines = file($myFile) /* this creates an array of all the lines in the file NOT just the first line */
echo $lines[8]; /* this will display the 9th line - Array element begin with zero - $lines[0] */
?>

You will need to use explode to get each separate pice of data in a line