I want to extract data from a string - php

Question

I have a string like the one below. I want to be able to extract the data and put it into variables. I would have used a function that focuses on a specifically formatted string but then it would create problems if the string is slightly different.
$str ="Surname : Lorem Creme
Name : Doe
Bank name :P.O.S
Account no:50345343
EC no:0000000K
ID no :85-000000 Q 85
DOB : 01-06-34
Employer name:min of education
Employeer Number: Borera pry 066 Mutawatawa
Client Physical Address: 45 New Lipore";
function ge($string, $start, $end){
$string = ' '. $string;
$ini =strpos($string, $start);
if ($ini == 0) return '';
$ini += strlen($start);
$len = strpos($string, $end, $ini) - $ini;
$den =substr($string, $ini, $len);
return substr($den, 0, -4);
}
if (isset($_POST['insert'])){
$real = $str;
$guru = preg_replace('/\s+/', '', $real);
$rem = str_replace(':', '', $guru);
$ren = str_replace('-', '', $rem);
$surname = ge($ren, "Surname", "Name");
$firstname =ge($ren, "Name", "Bankname");
$account_number = ge($ren, "Accountno", "ECno");
$Ec = ge($ren, "ECno", "IDno");
$id_num = ge($ren, 'IDno', "DOB");
$dob = ge($ren, "DOB", "Employername");
// Employer name:min of education
echo "First name: $firstname <br> Last name: $surname <br>";
echo "Bank : $bank_name <br>";
echo "ID Number : $id_num <br>";
echo "Account Number : $account_number <br>";
echo "DOB : $dob <br>";
echo "EC Number : $nex_ofk";
}
`

Answer 1

You can either you explode() twice with new line and then with : or you simple regex with preg_match_all
$str ="Surname : Lorem Creme
Name : Doe
Bank name :P.O.S
Account no:50345343
EC no:0000000K
ID no :85-000000 Q 85
DOB : 01-06-34
Employer name:min of education
Employeer Number: Borera pry 066 Mutawatawa
Client Physical Address: 45 New Lipore";
preg_match_all("#^\s*(.*?):\s*(.*?)\s*$#mx", $str, $matches);
var_dump(array_combine($matches[1], $matches[2]));
Output:
array(10) {
["Surname "]=>
string(11) "Lorem Creme"
["Name "]=>
string(3) "Doe"
["Bank name "]=>
string(5) "P.O.S"
["Account no"]=>
string(8) "50345343"
["EC no"]=>
string(8) "0000000K"
["ID no "]=>
string(14) "85-000000 Q 85"
["DOB "]=>
string(8) "01-06-34"
["Employer name"]=>
string(16) "min of education"
["Employeer Number"]=>
string(25) "Borera pry 066 Mutawatawa"
["Client Physical Address"]=>
string(13) "45 New Lipore"
}
The magic is in regex #^\s*(.*?):\s*(.*?)\s*$#mx you can find explanation here
array_combine() gets the values from 2 groups and combine them together to get one array.
preg_match_all applies regex to given string and return the output in
$matches array

Answer 2

Simplest way is with two explode calls:
<?php
$str ="Surname : Lorem Creme
Name : Doe
Bank name :P.O.S
Account no:50345343
EC no:0000000K
ID no :85-000000 Q 85
DOB : 01-06-34
Employer name:min of education
Employeer Number: Borera pry 066 Mutawatawa
Client Physical Address: 45 New Lipore";
//Split string into separate lines
$lines = explode(PHP_EOL, $str);
$result = array();
foreach($lines as $ln){
//Use explode to get the pieces left and right of the ':'
list($key, $val) = explode(':', $ln);
//Put that in a new array; use trim to get rid of 'presumably' unwanted whitespace
$result[trim($key)] = trim($val);
}
var_dump($result);
?>
You can also do this in one line with a regular expression, but this is probably simpler to understand.

Answer 3

Use php explode() function:
http://php.net/manual/en/function.explode.php
First do explode by new row to get rows (check on PHP_EOL constant here: http://php.net/manual/en/reserved.constants.php) and loop through them.
Then use another explode() call to explode by ":" sign to get field name and field value.
Use trim() function to remove space characters if they bother you.
$rows = explode(PHP_EOL, $str);
foreach ($rows as $row){
$rowParts = explode(':', $row);
$fieldName = trim($rowParts[0]);
$fieldValue = trim($rowParts[1]);
}
Should be something like that (I didn't test the code).

Answer 4

Depending on what your delimiter is, you can use explode()
In this case it looks like your delimiter is "\r\n". The explode would look like this:
$result = explode("\r\n", $str);
Afterwards you can explode on ":" as well, to get at key value result