Compare two strings and generate a new string with components from both - php

Question

I have a sting that looks like this
$storelist = "‘F Mart (6)’, ‘ACME (5)’, 'J/M Store (17)'";
I want to break out selected companies and the number of locations by comparing the first string to a second string like
$selectedstores = "‘F Mart’, 'J/M Store";
And output a sting like
$selectedwithnumber = "‘F Mart (6)’, 'J/M Store (17)'"
There could be 1 to 15 companies in a string and the location number varies but the apostrophes and parenthesis are standard. I hope there an easy way to do this as I have no idea where to start. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You can use explode function to split arrays to parts, and use preg_replace function to remove number of companies (with brackets) from first string. below you can find working example:
$storelist = "‘F Mart (6)’, ‘ACME (5)’, 'J/M Store (17)'";
$selectedstores = "‘F Mart’, 'J/M Store'";
//split second array
$selectedArray = explode(', ', $selectedstores);
$resultArray = array();
//split first array
foreach(explode(', ', $storelist) as $storeWithNumber) {
//remove " (number)" from each part
$store = preg_replace('/\s+\(\d+\)/', '', $storeWithNumber);
//check if current part is on selected list
if (in_array($store, $selectedArray)) {
$resultArray[] = $storeWithNumber;
}
}
$selectedwithnumber = implode(', ', $resultArray);
echo $selectedwithnumber.PHP_EOL;
result is:
‘F Mart (6)’, 'J/M Store (17)'

Answer 2

This will get what you need based on your description. It breaks up your strings into arrays and then uses a nested foreach loop to do the comparisons. I used string functions over regular expression functions in case speed becomes an issue. It does however require that your main string of stores follows the conventions you described.
<?php
$storelist = "'F Mart (6)', 'ACME (5)', 'J/M Store (17)'";
$selectedstores = "'F Mart', 'J/M Store'";
$stores = explode(",", $storelist);
$selected = explode(",", $selectedstores);
$newStoreList = array();
foreach($selected as $selectedStore) {
foreach($stores as $store) {
$s = trim( $selectedStore, "' ");
if(strstr($store, $s)) {
$newStoreList[] = $store;
}
}
}
$newStoreList = implode(",", $newStoreList);
echo $newStoreList;
?>
This will output: 'F Mart (6)', 'J/M Store (17)'
Hope that helps!