[SOLVED] Retrieving letters from a string

[point86]

Hi,

 

If I have read in a file, which I then convert into a string (say "string1"), how do I make a loop that goes through the string, makes all the letters capitals and writes all the LETTERS (not spaces, periods etc) into a new string ("string2")?

 

Thanks

 

Point.

[jcbarr]

<?php

$string = strtoupper($string);

?>

 

That will convert everything to upper case.

 

Then you can use a replace function to remove any non letter characters, I'm not the right one to show you how to do that because I'm not an expert on regular expressions yet. But look in to preg_replace

[boo_lolly]

i think this is what you want:

<?php
        
        function convert($file){
                $fp = fopen($file, 'r')
                while(!feof($fp)){
                        $line = fgets($fp, 1024);
                        $line = strtoupper($line);
                        $line = str_replace(" ", "", $line);
                        $line = str_replace(".", "", $line);
                        $string[] = $line;
                }
                fclose($fh);
                return $newstring = explode("\n", $string);
        }

        /*execute function*/
        convert("your_file.txt");
?>

[point86]

That's great, cheers.

 

Point.

[boo_lolly]

That's great, cheers.

 

Point.

 

glad it worked! my code was untested =P

[effigy]

Beware that it doesn't cover the etc part...

LETTERS (not spaces, periods etc)

 

If you only want letters, you'll need a regular expression. You'll also need to use Unicode properties if there are letters outside of the A-z range.

[boo_lolly]

Beware that it doesn't cover the etc part...

LETTERS (not spaces, periods etc)

 

If you only want letters, you'll need a regular expression. You'll also need to use Unicode properties if there are letters outside of the A-z range.

 

i definitely would have used preg_replace() instead of a couple of str_replace()'s, but unfortunately i am unfamiliar with regex =\. i need to learn it, otherwise i'm only half as capable. do you have any suggestions for tutorials or articles or books to learn regex, effigy?

[effigy]

Look under "Other Sources" here. Try the PHP Freaks tutorial and those @ RegularExpressions.info. If you really want to jump into regex, see the link to the book.