How to change order of substrings inside a larger string? - php

Question

This is fairly confusing, but I'll try to explain as best I can...
I've got a MYSQL table full of strings like this:
{3}12{2}3{5}52
{3}7{2}44
{3}15{2}2{4}132{5}52{6}22
{3}15{2}3{4}168{5}52
Each string is a combination of product options and option values. The numbers inside the { } are the option, for example {3} = Color. The number immediately following each { } number is that option's value, for example 12 = Blue. I've already got the PHP code that knows how to parse these strings and deliver the information correctly, with one exception: For reasons that are probably too convoluted to get into here, the order of the options needs to be 3,4,2,5,6. (To try to modify the rest of the system to accept the current order would be too monumental a task.) It's fine if a particular combination doesn't have all five options, for instance "{3}7{2}44" delivers the expected result. The problem is just with combinations that include option 2 AND option 4-- their order needs to be switched so that any combination that includes both options 2 and 4, the {4} and its corresponding value comes before the {2} and it's corresponding value.
I've tried bringing the column into Excel and using Text to Columns, splitting them up by the "{" and "}" characters and re-ordering the columns, but since not every string yields the same number of columns, the order gets messed up in other ways (like option 5 coming before option 2).
I've also experimented with using PHP to explode each string into an array (which I thought I could then re-sort) using "}" as the delimiter, but I had no luck with that either because then the numbers blend together in other ways that make them unusable.
TL;DR: I have a bunch of strings like the ones quoted above. In every string that contains both a "{2}" and a "{4}", the placement of both of those values needs to be switched, so that the {4} and the number that follows it comes before the {2} and the number that follows it. In other words:
{3}15{2}3{4}168{5}52
needs to become
{3}15{4}168{2}3{5}52
The closest I've been able to come to a solution, in pseudocode, would be something like:
for each string,
if "{4}" is present in this string AND "{2}" is present in this string,
take the "{4}" and every digit that follows it UNTIL you hit another "{" and store that substring as a variable, then remove it from the string.
then, insert that substring back into the string, at a position starting immediately before the "{2}".
I hope that makes some kind of sense...
Is there any way with PHP, Excel, Notepad++, regular expressions, etc., that I can do this? Any help would be insanely appreciated.
EDITED TO ADD: After several people posted solutions, which I tried, I realized that it would be crucial to mention that my host is running PHP 5.2.17, which doesn't seem to allow for usort with custom sorting. If I could upvote everyone's solution (all of which I tried in PHP Sandbox and all of which worked), I would, but my rep is too low.

Answer 1

How would something like this work for you. The first 9 lines just transform your string into an array with each element being an array of the option number and value. The Order establishes an order for the items to appear in and the last does a usort utilizing the order array for positions.
$str = "{3}15{2}2{4}132{5}52{6}22";
$matches = array();
preg_match_all('/\{([0-9]+)\}([0-9]+)/', $str, $matches);
array_shift($matches);
$options = array();
for($x = 0; $x < count($matches[0]); $x++){
$options[] = array($matches[0][$x], $matches[1][$x]);
}
$order = [3,4,2,5,6];
usort($options, function($a, $b) use ($order) {
return array_search($a[0], $order) - array_search($b[0], $order);
});
To get you data back into the required format you would just
$str = "";
foreach($options as $opt){
$str.="{".$opt[0]."}".$opt[1];
}
On of the bonuses here is that when you add a new options type inserting adjusting the order is just a matter of inserting the option number in the correct position of the $order array.

Answer 2

First of all, those options should probably be in a separate table. You're breaking all kinds of normalization rules stuffing those things into a string like that.
But if you really want to parse that out in php, split the string into a key=>value array with something like this:
$options = [];
$pairs = explode('{', $option_string);
foreach($pairs as $pair) {
list($key,$value) = explode('}', $pair);
$options[$key] = $value;
}
I think this will give you:
$options[3]=15;
$options[2]=3;
$options[4]=168;
$options[5]=52;
Another option would be to use some sort of existing serialization (either serialize() or json_encode() in php) instead of rolling your own:
$options_string = json_encode($options);
// store $options_string in db
then
// get $options_string from db
$options = json_decode($options_string);

Answer 3

Here's a neat solution:
$order = array(3, 4, 2, 5, 6);
$string = '{3}15{2}3{4}168{5}52';
$split = preg_split('#\b(?={)#', $string);
usort($split, function($a, $b) use ($order) {
$a = array_search(preg_replace('#^{(\d+)}\d+$#', '$1', $a), $order);
$b = array_search(preg_replace('#^{(\d+)}\d+$#', '$1', $b), $order);
return $a - $b;
});
$split = implode('', $split);
var_dump($split);