csv parsing, exploding avoiding "" - php

I have a csv file (really big) that I'm parsing with php.
Now is made like this.
x,y,z,value,etc
but sometimes there is this:
x,"blah,blah,blah",z,value,etc
doing this: explode(',',$string);
In case of a "" value also explode everything within.
array([0]=>x,[1]=>"blah,[2]=>blah,[3]=>blah"....)
What can I do to have this:
array([0]=>x,[1]=>"blah,blah,blah",[2]=>z....)
instead?
Thanks

Don't use explode, use fgetcsv.
For parsing just a string use str_getcsv if you have PHP >= 5.3.

If I were you and had to use the method you are saying. I would parse the string for text within the quotes via a regular expression.
Replace the , with a * (for example)
x,"blah*blah*blah",z,value,etc
then explode the string once again with the ,
Now you should get an approriate array but now you have the bla*bla*bla.
Then just do str_replace on the array
And in that way you should work..
This only applies if you have strict rules how to parse.. (in this case by explode);

Related

How to stop PHP from assuming string contains variable

I've been trying to find solution somewhere for this possibly simple fix but, I haven't been able to surprisingly.
How is it possible to stop PHP from assuming a variable is a part of a string. E.g.
The line of code is $string = "slfnnwnfkw49828323$dgjkt^7ktlskegjejke";
how do you stop PHP from thinking '$dgjkt' is a variable within the string when it's really a part of the full string as characters. Thanks
Use this string like $sting = 'slfnnwnfkw49828323$dgjkt^7ktlskegjejke'
You have to use ' instead of " otherwise php tries to find any variables inside your string
Read the manual.
The most important feature of double-quoted strings is the fact that
variable names will be expanded. See string parsing for details:
When a string is specified in double quotes or with heredoc, variables are parsed within it.
There are two types of syntax: a simple one and a complex one. The
simple syntax is the most common and convenient. It provides a way to
embed a variable, an array value, or an object property in a string
with a minimum of effort.
The complex syntax can be recognised by the curly braces surrounding
the expression.

mysql value in array format, convert to PHP array

I have a part of my application that takes a bunch of values in JavaScript and stores them as an array in my MySQL database. Example of what this looks like in the database:
['123431234','3463412346','235456234','2352351','45623412']
When I grab this value in PHP, I can't seem to convert it to a PHP array properly. What's the proper method to converting a value like this that by default PHP considers a string into a PHP array?
You could try explode().
Split a string by string
You can explode your string as following:
$pieces = explode("','", $mysql_string)
You will then have to clean up the array a bit yourself. You can try str_replace to clean up any stuff you don't want.
Replace all occurrences of the search string with the replacement
string
For example:
str_replace('[', '', $pieces)
Or use an array to find everything you want to replace.
Good luck!
If you still can change the way the data is stored, you could think about json_encode() and json_decode() Which converts data into a well formatted string so it can be converted back easily. If you are communicating with a javascript client anyway, this could make your life much more comfortable.

preg_match removes escaping from json string

I am trying to parse some json data using json_decode function of php. However, I need to remove certain leading and trailing characters from this long string before decoding. Therefore, I am using preg_match to remove those characters prior to decode. For some reason, preg_match is changing escaping when it encounters following substring (in the middle of the string)
{content: \\\"\\200B\\\"}
After preg_match the above string looks like this:
{content: \\"\200B\\"}
Because of this, json_decode fails.
FYI, the preg_match pattern looks like this:
(?<=remove_these_leading_char)(.*)(?=remove_these_trailing_char)
OK, so here is the additional information based on the questions being asked:
Why triple escaping? fix triple escpaing etc. The answer is that I don't have any control over it. It is not generated by my code.
The original string is not fully json compliant. It has several leading and trailing characters that need to be removed. Therefore I have to use regex. The format of that string is like this:
returnedHTMLdata({json_object},xx);
It looks like this behavior is not limited to preg_match only. Even substr also does this.
It looks like you've got some JSON with padding. To remove the function name and parenthesis, leaving the (unescaped) json object, you can do something like this:
$str = <<<'EOS'
returnedHTMLdata({content: \\\"\\200B\\\", foo: \\\"bar\\\", \"baz\": \\\"fez\\\"},xx);
EOS;
$str = preg_replace('/.+?({.+}).+/','$1', $str);
echo $str;
Output:
{content: \\\"\\200B\\\", foo: \\\"bar\\\", \"baz\": \\\"fez\\\"}
Please note that even if you manage to successfully unescape this string, json_decode requires that keys - e.g. "content" - are enclosed in double quotes, so you will need to modify the JSON string/object before calling that function. Or I guess you could instead use something like the old Services_JSON package to decode it, which I believe does not have that requirement.

PHP - replace php formula

I am trying to work out the optimal way to replace all PHP variables within a string of code with a call to an array instead as shown below.
E.g. source code string
$random_var_name + $random_var_name2 * $diff_var_name3
Transformed into
$varArray["random_var_name"] + $varArray["random_var_name2"] * $varArray["diff_var_name3"]
I had thought that preg_replace() was the optimal solution, but the difficulty comes with the need to perform the replacement with a sub-part of the search pattern.
Perhaps it is better to just retrieve all the variables with a preg_match, edit/wrap them, then perform a single str_replace() for each variable?
However this is probably considerably slower.
The following regex should do what you're asking:
preg_replace('/\$([a-zA-Z_0-9]+)/', '$varArray["$1"]', $input_string);
In order to avoid to change $var['foo'] to $varArray["var"]['foo'] you have to check there're no [ character after the variable name. For this use a negative look-ahead:
$string = preg_replace('/\$(\w+)(?![\w\[])/', '$varArray["$1"]', $string);

php string manipulation nonrandom sort

I am trying to sort a 4 character string thats being feed in from a user into a different order. an example might be they type "abcd" which I then take and turn it into "bcad".
Here is an example of my attempt which is not working :P
<?php
$mixedDate = $_REQUEST['userDate'];
$formatted_date = firstSubString($mixedDate,2).secondSubString($mixedDate,3).thirdSubString($mixedDate,1).fourthSubString($mixedDate,4);
//... maybe some other stuff here then echo formatted_date
?>
any help would be appreciated.
Copied from comment:
You could pretty simply do this by doing something like:
$formatted_date = $mixedDate[1].$mixedDate[2].$mixedDate[0].$mixedDate[3];
That way, you don't have to bother with calling a substring method many times, since you're just moving individual characters around.
<?php
$mixedDate = $_REQUEST['userDate'];
$formatted_date = $mixedDate{1}.$mixedDate{2}.$mixedDate{0}.$mixedDate{3};
echo $formatted_date;
?>
The curly syntax allows you to get just that one character from your string.
It should be noted that this works correctly on your sample string, abcd and turns it into bcad if $_REQUEST['userDate'] is abcd.
Look into split() in php. It takes a string and a delimiter then splits the string into an array. Either force the user to use a certain format or use a regex on the input string to put the date into a known format, like dd/mm/yyyy or dd-mm-yyyy, then use the hyphen or / as the delimiter.
Once the string is split into an array, you can rearrange it any way you like.
That is very simple.
If
$mixedDate = 21-12-2010
then, try this
echo substr($mixedDate, 3,
2).'-'.substr($mixedDate, 0,
2).'-'.substr($mixedDate, 6);
this will result in
12-21-2010
This is assuming the format is fixed.
Use str_split() to break the string into single characters:
$char_array = str_split($input_string);
If you know exactly what order you want, and you only have four characters, then from here you can actually just do it the way you wanted from your question, and concatenate the array elements back into a single string, like so:
$output_string = $char_array[2].$char_array[3].$char_array[1].$char_array[4];
If your needs are more complex, you can sort and implode the string:
Use sort() to put the characters into order:
sort($char_array);
Or one of the other related sorting functions that PHP provides if you need a different sort order. If you need an sort order which is specific to your requirements, you can use usort(), which allows you to write a function which defines how the sorting works.
Then re-join the characters into a single string using implode():
$output_string = implode($char_array);
Hope that helps.

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