[RESOLVED] RegExp parsing on a TXT file

@UltimaterDec 16.2005

First off my main data is stored in a file called “news.txt” (MySQL is another option but this approach well suits it’s purpose)
It’s contents:

[code] [color=blue]<!– Start New Post –>[/color] <!– Start Author –> Ultimater 6-18-05 <!– End Author–> <!– Start Clan News –> Welcome to our new member NightZon! The clan will meet tomorrow at 4:00 eastern time on 6-18-05 in the lounge <!– End Clan News –> <!– Start Site Update –> Building a new skin for the site. It will have a glassy look to it. <!– End Site Update –> [color=blue]<!– End New Post –>[/color]

[color=blue]<!– Start New Post –>[/color] <!– Start Author –> HarryPothead 8-29-05 <!– End Author–> <!– Start Clan News –> Congrats to BurningShadow onbehalf of his co-leader promotion the new ranking system for our clan that involves a system of tests will (hopefully) be finished in its design by September 1st, its implimentation date is yet to be set, but it would apear as though a large amount of our clan aproves of the new system.. where as the old system many people were objecting to 😉 the new system will hopefully make ranks a more.. apeasing thing to get involved in, where as before many people were “i have a rank?! what!?” yeah.. that was not how i want our clan to be MC raid last night!!! even tho i was realy the only person in it.. but i will have screenshots added to the WoW shot section asap! enjoy!

 <!– End Clan News –> <!– Start Site Update –> i apologize for not having made a news post for a wile, i dont want this to be a place where people say.. oh.. the website.. there is nothing usefull there.. i will work harder to get all important news updates recorded Ultimater should finish the news blog before long… <!– End Site Update –> [color=blue]<!– End New Post –>[/color] [/code]

Now I need to parse the data into three major arrays $authors, $clannews, $siteupdates.

Open the above file using PHP, again it’s called “news.txt” and located in the root directory.
Next store all of it’s contents into a scalar variable for PHP to work-with by the name of $template.
Then execute the following regular expression on $template and store all the matches into a new array called $newposts:

[code] /<!–s*Starts+News+Posts*–>(.*?)<!–s*Ends+News+Posts*–>/igs [/code]

Loop through the array $newposts and execute one-by-one the-following-three regular expressions on it.

[code] /<!–s*Starts+Authors*–>(.*?)<!–s*Ends+Authors*–>/igs (append the matches into an array $authors) /<!–s*Starts+Clans+Newss*–>(.*?)<!–s*Ends+Clans+Newss*–>/igs (append the matches into an array $clannews) /<!–s*Starts+Sites+Updates*–>(.*?)<!–s*Ends+Sites+Updates*–>/igs (append the matches into an array $siteupdates) [/code]

PHP should now contain 3 major one-dimensional arrays to work-with furthermore.

[code] [color=blue]$authors[/color]=array(‘Ultimater 6-18-05’, ‘HarryPothead 8-29-05’);

[color=blue]$clannews[/color]=array(‘ Welcome to our new member NightZon! The clan will meet tomorrow at 4:00 eastern time on 6-18-05 in the lounge ’, ‘Congrats to BurningShadow onbehalf of his co-leader promotion the new ranking system for our clan that involves a system of tests will (hopefully) be finished in its design by September 1st, its implimentation date is yet to be set, but it would apear as though a large amount of our clan aproves of the new system.. where as the old system many people were objecting to 😉 the new system will hopefully make ranks a more.. apeasing thing to get involved in, where as before many people were “i have a rank?! what!?” yeah.. that was not how i want our clan to be MC raid last night!!! even tho i was realy the only person in it.. but i will have screenshots added to the WoW shot section asap! enjoy!

 ’);

[color=blue]$siteupdates[/color]=array(‘ Building a new skin for the site. It will have a glassy look to it.’, ‘ i apologize for not having made a news post for a wile, i dont want this to be a place where people say.. oh.. the website.. there is nothing usefull there.. i will work harder to get all important news updates recorded Ultimater should finish the news blog before long…’); [/code]

That is all.

to post a comment

PHP

6 Comments(s) _↴

@LiLcRaZyFuZzYDec 16.2005 — #what's the problem?

@SpectreReturnsDec 16.2005 — #I was actually wondering the same thing, but didn't think it nessecary to post. (but now I do - I'm bored.)

@artoDec 16.2005 — #You really are reinventing the wheel here, Ultimater.

Use xml, that's what it is for. Let's say your data file looks like this:

[code=php]<news>
 <post>
 <author>Ultimater</author>
 <date>6-18-05</date>
 <clan>
 <paragraph>Welcome to our new member NightZon!  The clan will meet tomorrow at 4:00 eastern time on 6-18-05 in the lounge</paragraph>
 </clan>
 <site>
 <paragraph>Building a new skin for the site. It will have a glassy look to it.</paragraph>
 </site>
 </post>
 <post>
 <author>HarryPothead</author>
 <date>8-29-05</date>
 <clan>
 <paragraph>Congrats to BurningShadow onbehalf of his co-leader promotion</paragraph>
 <paragraph>the new ranking system for our clan that involves a system of tests will (hopefully) be finished in its design by September 1st, its implimentation date is yet to be set, but it would apear as though a large amount of our clan aproves of the new system.. where as the old system many people were objecting to ;) the new system will hopefully make ranks a more.. apeasing thing to get involved in, where as before many people were "i have a rank?! what!?" yeah.. that was not how i want our clan to be</paragraph>
 <paragraph>MC raid last night!!! even tho i was realy the only person in it.. but i will have screenshots added to the WoW shot section asap! enjoy!</paragraph>
 </clan>
 <site>
 <paragraph>i apologize for not having made a news post for a wile, i dont want this to be a place where people say.. oh.. the website.. there is nothing usefull there.. i will work harder to get all important news updates recorded</paragraph>
 <paragraph>Ultimater should finish the news blog before long...</paragraph>
 </site>
 </post>
 </news>[/code]

Now, you can use the SimpleXML extension from PHP5:

[code=php]$file='news.xml';
 
 if (!$xml=simplexml_load_file($file))
 die("couldn't load $filen");[/code]

[I]$xml[/I] object contains all data from the file, for example:

[I]$xml->post[/I] is array with two posts in it,

[I]$xml->post[1]->clan->paragraph[1][/I] is second paragraph from clan news in second post ("the new ranking system...").

So you can use loops to output news to html:

[code=php]foreach ($xml->post as $post) {
 echo('<div class="cssPost">');
 echo('<div class="cssPostHeader">'.$post->author.', '.$post->date.'</div>');
 echo('<div class="cssClanNewsHeader">Clan news:</div>');
 foreach ($post->clan->paragraph as $par)
 echo('<div class="cssClanNewsPar">'.$par.'</div>');
 echo('<div class="cssSiteUpdateHeader">Site update:</div>');
 foreach ($post->site->paragraph as $par)
 echo('<div class="cssSiteUpdatePar">'.$par.'</div>');
 echo('</div>');
 }[/code]

Simple, eh? Yes, that's why they call it SimpleXML ?

Now, attach some nice stylesheet and voila:

[code=php]<style type="text/css">
 .cssPost {
 border: 1px solid black;
 margin: 10px;
 padding: 5px;
 }
 .cssPostHeader {
 font-weight: bold;
 color: blue;
 text-decoration: underline;
 }
 .cssClanNewsHeader {
 font-weight: bold;
 }
 .cssClanNewsPar {
 margin-left: 10px;
 margin-bottom: 10px;
 }
 .cssSiteUpdateHeader {
 font-weight: bold;
 }
 .cssSiteUpdatePar {
 margin-left: 10px;
 margin-bottom: 10px;
 }
 </style>[/code]

Also, don't use empty paragraphs for formatting, this should be done with css.

Arto

PS. Of course, I would still use database for something like this ?

@ScleppelDec 16.2005 — #If you're not going to use XML, this might work for you:

[code=php]<?php
 
 // catch all errors while developing.
 error_reporting(E_ALL);
 
 // you might want to catch errors opening the file.
 $file_contents = file_get_contents($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/news.txt');
 
 $regex = '#<!--s*Starts*News*Posts*-->s*'.
 '<!--s*Starts*Authors*-->' .
 '(.*)' .
 '<!--s*Ends*Authors*-->s*' .
 '<!--s*Starts*Clans*Newss*-->' .
 '(.*)' .
 '<!--s*Ends*Clans*Newss*-->s*' .
 '<!--s*Starts*Sites*Updates*-->' .
 '(.*)' .
 '<!--s*Ends*Sites*Updates*-->s*' .
 '<!--s*Ends*News*Posts*-->#misU';
 
 preg_match_all($regex,$file_contents,$output);
 
 /* The code below this comment trims the values before putting them into
 their named arrays, if you don't care or will trim later, use this instead:
 
 $authors     = $output[1];
 $clannews    = $output[2];
 $siteupdates = $output[3];
 
 */
 $authors     = array();
 $clannews    = array();
 $siteupdates = array();
 
 foreach($output[1] as $val)
 {
 $authors[] = trim($val);
 }
 
 foreach($output[2] as $val)
 {
 $clannews[] = trim($val);
 }
 
 foreach($output[3] as $val)
 {
 $siteupdates[] = trim($val);
 }
 
 // test it's done it right.
 header('Content-Type: text/plain');
 print_r($authors);
 print_r($clannews);
 print_r($siteupdates);
 
 ?>[/code]

@UltimaterauthorDec 16.2005 — #@arto

Thank you for writting the code. It looks magnificent, simple, and well-structured. The only problem being my server sux. ?

<i>
 </i>Fatal error: Call to undefined function: simplexml_load_file() in /var/www/html/phptest.php on line 4

Maybe when I upgrade to PHP5 in the future I'll try it out for learning purposes and be amazed.

@Scleppel

That worked perfectly on my server! Thank you!

Thanks you both. You were just as helpful as I am in the JavaScript forum for many others! ?

@SpectreReturnsDec 17.2005 — #Thanks you both. You were just as helpful as I am in the JavaScript forum for many others! ?[/QUOTE] ****y bastard... (I love you anyway)

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