Fetch Date and a String from another string - php

Question

I have a bunch of strings like this, for example:
Time: 22:30 (25) | Date: 19 March 2011 | Contributor: Salesman
Now, I want to extract the date and the string after Contributor, i.e, Salesman.
Currently, I am using explode() function in PHP.
But the problem is, the string has many variations like:
Time: 22:30 (25) | Date: 19 March 2011
Time: 22:30 (25) | Date: 2011 | Contributor: Salesman
Time: 22:30 (25) | Contributor: Salesman
Time: 22:30 (25) | Date: 2011
I want something that works perfect for all the variations. Where a field is unavailable, I shall consider it as NULL. For full date I need to store the date in database, and for only year I shall save the year.
Suggest me some code for this problem, or a regular expression in PHP if this problem can be solved through it.

Answer 1

Time:.*?\|\s*(?:Date:\s*([0-9a-zA-Z ]+))?\|?\s*(?:Contributor:\s*([a-zA-Z0-9 ]+))?
Try this.This will only give groups available.
See demo.
http://regex101.com/r/nG1gU7/18

Answer 2

You could try something like this:
$string = 'Time: 22:30 (25) | Date: 19 March 2011';
function str_func($string, $key, $remove_key = FALSE)
{
$string = trim($string);
if ($string[strlen($string) - 1] !== '|') {
$string .= '|';
}
$pos = strpos(strtolower($string), strtolower($key) . ':');
if ($pos !== FALSE) {
$return = strstr(substr($string, $pos), '|', true);
return ($remove_key) ? trim(substr($return, strlen($key) + 1)) : $return;
} else {
return NULL;
}
}
So just pass it the string and 'Time' or 'Contributor' (and optionally whether you'd like the key to be removed) e.g.
//Will return Time: 22:30 (25)
echo str_func($string, 'time');
//Will remove 'date: ' from the returned string
echo str_func($string, 'date', TRUE);
Hope this helps!

Answer 3

I think you want something like this,
^.*?\|\s*\K(?:Date:\s*((?:\d{2}\s*\S+)?\s*\d{4})\s*\|?)?\s*(?:Contributor:\s*(\S+))?
DEMO
Group index 1 contains the value of Date: field and group index 2 contains the value of Contributor: field.
Code:
<?php
$data = <<< EOT
Time: 22:30 (25) | Date: 19 March 2011
Time: 22:30 (25) | Date: 2011 | Contributor: Salesman
Time: 22:30 (25) | Contributor: Salesman
Time: 22:30 (25) | Date: 2011
EOT;
$regex = '~^(?:.*?\|\s*)(Date:\s*((?:\d{2} \S+ )?\d{4}))?(?:\s\|\s*)?(Contributor:\s*(\S+))?\s*$~m';
preg_match_all($regex, $data, $matches);
print_r($matches);
?>
Output:
Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[0] => Time: 22:30 (25) | Date: 19 March 2011
[1] => Time: 22:30 (25) | Date: 2011 | Contributor: Salesman
[2] => Time: 22:30 (25) | Contributor: Salesman
[3] => Time: 22:30 (25) | Date: 2011
)
[1] => Array
(
[0] => Date: 19 March 2011
[1] => Date: 2011
[2] =>
[3] => Date: 2011
)
[2] => Array
(
[0] => 19 March 2011
[1] => 2011
[2] =>
[3] => 2011
)
[3] => Array
(
[0] =>
[1] => Contributor: Salesman
[2] => Contributor: Salesman
[3] =>
)
[4] => Array
(
[0] =>
[1] => Salesman
[2] => Salesman
[3] =>
)
)