PHP get array of search terms from string - php

Question

Is there an easy way to parse a string for search terms including negative terms?
'this -that "the other thing" -"but not this" "-positive"'
would change to
array(
"positive" => array(
"this",
"the other thing",
"-positive"
),
"negative" => array(
"that",
"but not this"
)
)
so those terms could be used to search.

Answer 1

The code below will parse your query string and split it up into positive and negative search terms.
// parse the query string
$query = 'this -that "-that" "the other thing" -"but not this" ';
preg_match_all('/-*"[^"]+"|\S+/', $query, $matches);
// sort the terms
$terms = array(
'positive' => array(),
'negative' => array(),
);
foreach ($matches[0] as $match) {
if ('-' == $match[0]) {
$terms['negative'][] = trim(ltrim($match, '-'), '"');
} else {
$terms['positive'][] = trim($match, '"');
}
}
print_r($terms);
Output
Array
(
[positive] => Array
(
[0] => this
[1] => -that
[2] => the other thing
)
[negative] => Array
(
[0] => that
[1] => but not this
)
)

Answer 2

For those looking for the same thing I have created a gist for PHP and JavaScript
https://gist.github.com/UziTech/8877a79ebffe8b3de9a2
function getSearchTerms($search) {
$matches = null;
preg_match_all("/-?\"[^\"]+\"|-?'[^']+'|\S+/", $search, $matches);
// sort the terms
$terms = [
"positive" => [],
"negative" => []
];
foreach ($matches[0] as $i => $match) {
$negative = ("-" === $match[0]);
if ($negative) {
$match = substr($match, 1);
}
if (($match[0] === '"' && substr($match, -1) === '"') || ($match[0] === "'" && substr($match, -1) === "'")) {
$match = substr($match, 1, strlen($match) - 2);
}
if ($negative) {
$terms["negative"][] = $match;
} else {
$terms["positive"][] = $match;
}
}
return $terms;
}