php wildcard characters in filename - php

Question

In a PHP while loop, I have the following:
$sql = mysqli_query($conn,"SELECT * FROM stock ORDER BY partnumber");
$productCount = mysqli_num_rows($sql);
if ($productCount > 0) {
while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($sql)){
$id = $row["id"];
$partnumber = $row["partnumber"];
$description = $row["description"];
$price = $row["listprice"];
$availability = $row["availability"];
$image = "path/$partnumber.jpg";
if(!file_exists($image)) { //substitute image if one does not exist
$image = "path/no-image.jpg";
}
When displaying the images in a table, I have:
<img src="'.$image.'" alt="'.$partnumber.'" />
It works ok with exact matches.
The problem is, many of the images contain lower case x in the filename as a character wildcard.
How can I get these image filenames containing x to display with the partnumbers containing explicit characters in their filenames?
Example filename: AB2Dxxx.jpg
Example partnumber: AB2DTUV

Answer 1

I hope this will help - I've had to adapt it to run locally, but it uses glob and assumes that the wildcards are all at the end of the string, so the filename can step back until a match is found.
The execution path has a folder called images, which will contain our theoretical part images. In lieu of a database, I've defined a simple key/value array containing my test results (it looks like you only rely on the partnumber, so that's all I've defined...).
The images directory contains two files: ABCDEF.jpg and ABCxxx.jpg.
$parts = array( array( "partnumber"=> "ABCDEF" ),
array( "partnumber"=> "ABDCEF" ),
array( "partnumber"=> "ABCDDD" ) );
foreach($parts as $part) {
$partnumber = $part["partnumber"];
$next_pn = $partnumber;
$pn_len = strlen($partnumber);
echo $partnumber." is the part number<br>-------------<br>";
while(strlen($next_pn) > 0 )
{
$image = null;
foreach (glob("images/".$partnumber."*.jpg", GLOB_NOSORT) as $filename) {
$image = $filename;
echo $filename . " matches " . $partnumber."<br>";
}
if($image) {
echo "<br>";
break;
}
$next_pn = substr($next_pn, 0, -1);
$partnumber = str_pad($next_pn, $pn_len, "x");
}
}
This outputs
ABCDEF is the part number
-------------
images/ABCDEF.jpg matches ABCDEF
ABDCEF is the part number
-------------
ABCDDD is the part number
-------------
images/ABCxxx.jpg matches ABCxxx
As you can see, it will basically take a filename and check for a match - if none is found, it takes off a character and replaces it with an x, then checks again. In this case:
ABCDEF matches ABCDEF.jpg instantly;
ABDCEF doesn't match any of the files, and;
ABCDDD matches ABCxxx.jpg on the fourth loop (first checks for ABCDDD, second ABCDDx, third ABCDxx, fourth matches on ABCxxx).
It isn't perfect and might need a bit more work, but it seems like it would do what you're looking to do.
P.S. glob has a lot of options - I've used NOSORT as a flag which tends to help it run a bit quicker when there are lots of files to hunt through.
http://php.net/manual/en/function.glob.php