trim not behaving consistently in php - php

Question

I have an array of email ids - they are in the below format
<my_link_1#mysite.com>
<my_link_35#mysite.com>
<my_link_40#mysite.com>
I then use a foreach loop and parse each of the email ids as shown in the below function
protected function getLinkIds($emailAddresses = array()) {
$links = array();
foreach ($emailAddresses as $email) {
$username = substr($email, 0, strpos($email, '#'));
if (false === strpos($username, 'my_link_'))) {
continue;
}
CakeLog::write('debug', 'getLinkIds - username : '.$username);
CakeLog::write('debug', 'getLinkIds - trim(username) : ' . trim($username, '<>"'));
$linkstr = explode('my_link_', $username);
$links[trim($username, '<>"')] = $linkstr[1];
}
return $links;
}
I expect an array that looks like below
[my_link_1] => 1
[my_link_35] => 35
[my_link_40] => 40
but instead I get an array like below
[my_link_1] => 1
[<my_link_35] => 35
[<my_link_40] => 40
For some reason trim doest not trim the left caret beyond the first email id - baffling!!!

Answer 1

Like I had early mentioned in the comments of your question, using:
var_dump($emailAddresses);
To make sure the other lines do not start with a space otherwise trim would fail in your code sample as you don't have any trim's that are set to remove space.
You could have done it in the following way, to secure it would not start with a space in your code:
protected function getLinkIds($emailAddresses = array())
{
$links = array();
foreach ($emailAddresses as $email)
{
$email = trim($email);
//.... rest of your code
}
return $links;
}
Or even as simple as:
protected function getLinkIds($emailAddresses = array())
{
$links = array();
foreach ($emailAddresses as $email)
{
$username = trim(substr($email, 0, strpos($email, '#')), ' <');
//.... rest of your code
}
return $links;
}
Below is the original answer prior the OP answer in the comments.
You were almost there, when you stripped the username, all you had left was the initial <, which you could have removed by changing this line:
$username = substr($email, 0, strpos($email, '#'));
With the addition of trim, like so:
$username = trim(substr($email, 0, strpos($email, '#')), ' <');
Now you had the my_link_# left which you could again use a simple left trim(ltrim) to get what you wanted:
$id = ltrim($username, 'my_link_');
Now you have the # alone, so your code would look like:
protected function getLinkIds($emailAddresses = array())
{
$links = array();
foreach ($emailAddresses as $email)
{
$username = trim(substr($email, 0, strpos($email, '#')), ' <');
if (false === strpos($username, 'my_link_'))) {
continue;
}
CakeLog::write('debug', 'getLinkIds - username : '.$username);
CakeLog::write('debug', 'getLinkIds - trim(username) : ' . trim($username, '<>"'));
$links[$username] = ltrim($username, 'my_link_');
}
return $links;
}
Output:
Array
(
[my_link_1] => 1
[my_link_35] => 35
[my_link_40] => 40
)
Live DEMO

Answer 2

You can do this like that:
$emails = array(
'<my_link_1#mysite.com>',
'<my_link_35#mysite.com>',
'<my_link_40#mysite.com>'
);
$result = array();
foreach($emails as $email) {
$email = trim($email, '<>');
$tmp = strstr($email, '#', true);
preg_match('/_([0-9]*)$/', $tmp, $matches);
$result[$tmp] = $matches[1];
}
print_r($result);
Result:
Array
(
[my_link_1] => 1
[my_link_35] => 35
[my_link_40] => 40
)

Answer 3

http://codepad.viper-7.com/lN8WpI
Trim is working fine. Look at the link above.
But here's probably the cleanest way to do it:
DEMO
$email = "<my_link_40#mysite.com>";
$email = trim("<my_link_40#mysite.com>", "<>"); //my_link_40#mysite.com
$email = current(explode("#", $email)); //my_link_40
$email_int = (int) filter_var($email, FILTER_SANITIZE_NUMBER_INT); //40
$array = array( $email => $email_int );
var_dump($array);
array(1)
{
["my_link_40"] => int(40)
}