Replace whitespaces with a comma only for the first few occurances.

[l_kris06]

Hi all,

 

I need to replace whitespaces with a comma only for the first few occurances. For example:

 

$a = "1 A AB 2 ABC 3 ABCD 4 5 The whitespace inbetween these must not be replaced with a comma";

 

I need to replace the spaces between "1" and "The" with a comma(,) . The remaining part of

the string must be left untouched. This resultant string must go into a variable.

 

desired output: 

--------------

          1,A,AB,2,ABC,3,ABCD,4,5,The whitespace inbetween these must not be replaced with a comma

 

 

I would really appreciate, if somebody can help me out. Thanks.

 

 

      /Kris

[Stooney]

Is the length of the string static?  (does it stay the same).  If so you could just replace it using the string offset.  ex

$string="A B C D";

echo $string[2];  //outputs B

 

You could use this to replace the commas.  But that's only if it's a static length.  Otherwise you might need to look into regex.

[l_kris06]

The length of string is not static.  I am stuck. any help ?

[Stooney]

You would need preg_replace().  Read up on it here: http://us.php.net/preg_replace

 

You can choose the pattern to replace, and the max number of replacements. 

[laffin]

Looks like the common denominator is that the Whitespaces are between CAPS ALPHANUMS.

 

as stated preg_replace is what ya looking for

but since we know the pattern it makes it very simple

 

<?php
  $str='1 A AB 2 ABC 3 ABCD 4 5 The whitespace inbetween these must not be replaced with a comma';
  $rpl=preg_replace('@([A-Z0-9]+)( )@','$1,',$str);
  echo "$str<br>$rpl";
?>
// Output:
//1 A AB 2 ABC 3 ABCD 4 5 The whitespace inbetween these must not be replaced with a comma
//1,A,AB,2,ABC,3,ABCD,4,5,The whitespace inbetween these must not be replaced with a comma

 

Taa-Daa

[l_kris06]

Hi Laffin,

 

Thanks for the piece of code. It works like a charm for the example i had given, however in a real scenario it replaces all occurances of whitespaces with a comma.

 

Heres the real data:

 

$data = SIP25071 O 4.4 43 4 ERG 02/28/2008 Mike cisco2000 ptime.baseval header, incorrect chk in.

 

after using the piece of code u suggested, i get

 

SIP25071,O,4.4,43,4,ERG,02/28/2008,Mike cisco2000,ptime.baseval header, incorrect,chk,in.

 

notice there is no comma between "Mike" and "cisco2000".

 

my desired output is:

--------------------

SIP25071,O,4.4,43,4,ERG,02/28/2008,Mike,cisco2000,ptime.baseval header incorrect chk in.

 

 

These data are individual bug statistics. I eventually want to write to the database, hence the need

for the delimiter. 

 

I would really appreciate, if somebody can fix this further.

 

    /Kris

 

 

[laffin]

Thats a lot more complex, what u have to figure out

is a pattern system.

from the looks of it, u will probably have to create a phrase list, to be kept intact.

and add commas everywhere except within a phrase list

 

or look closely at yer output and look for any type of pattern between the values, or the values sequence.

[sasa]

if you want to replace first 9 spaces with comma try

<?php
$a = '1 A AB 2 ABC 3 ABCD 4 5 The whitespace inbetween these must not be replaced with a comma';
//$a = 'SIP25071 O 4.4 43 4 ERG 02/28/2008 Mike cisco2000 ptime.baseval header incorrect chk in';
for ($c = 0;$c < 9; $c++) $a[strcspn($a,' ')] = ',';
echo $a;
?>

[corbin]

Expanding on laffins' idea, you could do:

 

$str = preg_replace('/([A-Z]) ([A-Z])/', '$1,$2', $str);

 

 

 

This assumes that the str you want to alter will never have a word ending in a capital followed by a word beginning with a capital in the section where you do not wish for spaces to go to commas.

 

Does the date part (02/28/2008) stay at the same place?  If so, you could just explode it, implode part a, implode part b and then put a and b together.

[l_kris06]

Given the time i have for dumping these results to a database, Sasa's idea seems quick enough,

however the resultant output is message up.

 

i get an output like this:

-----------------------

 

SIP25071,,O,, 4.4,,,,, 43 4 ERG 02/28/2008 Mike cisco2000 ptime.baseval header incorrect chk in

 

any help ?

 

 

[laffin]

well if ya just need 9 commas

 

<?php
  $str='SIP25071 O 4.4 43 4 ERG 02/28/2008 Mike cisco2000 ptime.baseval header incorrect chk in';
  $rpl=preg_replace('@([^\s]+)(\s+)@','$1,',$str,9);
  echo "$str<br>$rpl";
  //Output
  //SIP25071 O 4.4 43 4 ERG 02/28/2008 Mike cisco2000 ptime.baseval header incorrect chk in
  //SIP25071,O,4.4,43,4,ERG,02/28/2008,Mike,cisco2000,ptime.baseval header incorrect chk in
?>

[l_kris06]

Lafin,

that did it. Thank you.

 

Thanks all, for taking your time off to help me out, appreciate it so much. I got the solution exactly 94 mins before the ultimatum!! Thanks once again Lafin!!

 

/Kris