extracting multiple fields from a text file using php - php

Question

what is the best way of extracting multiple (~40 values) from a text file using php?
the data is more or less like:
NAMEA valuea
NAMEB valueb
I'm looking for a proper* approach to extracting this data into a data-structure, because i will need to specify regexs for all of them (all 40).
did i make myself clear?
*meaning, the default/painful method would be for me to do:
$namea = extractfunction("regexa", $textfilevalue);
$nameb = extractfunction("regeb", $textfilevalue);
... 40 times!
The lines may not be in the same order, or be present in each file. Every NAMEA is text like: "Registration Number:", or "Applicant Name:" (ie, with spaces in what i was calling as NAMEA)
Response to the Col.
i'm looking for a sensible "way" of writing my code, so its readable, modifiable, builds an object/array thats easily callable, etc... "good coding style!" :)
#Adam - They do actually... and contain slashes as well...
#Alix - Freaking marvelous man! THat was GOOD! would you also happen to have any insights on how I can "truncate" the rsultant array by removing everything from "key_x" and beyond? Should i open that as a new question?

Answer 1

Here is my take at it:
somefile.txt:
NAMEA valuea
NAMEB valueb
PHP Code:
$file = file_get_contents('./somefile.txt');
$string = preg_replace('~^(.+?)\s+(.+?)$~m', '$1=$2', $file);
$string = str_replace(array("\r\n", "\r", "\n"), '&', $string);
$result = array();
parse_str($string, $result);
echo '<pre>';
print_r($result);
echo '</pre>';
Output:
Array
(
[NAMEA] => valuea
[NAMEB] => valueb
)
You may also be able to further simplify this by using str_getcsv() on PHP 5.3+.
EDIT: My previous version fails for keys that have spaces like #Col. Shrapnel noticed. I didn't read the question with enough attention. A possible solution since you seem to be using keys that always have : appended is this:
$string = preg_replace('~^(.+?):\s+(.+?)$~m', '$1=$2', $file);
To remove everything from key_x to the end of the file you can do something like this:
$string = substr($string, 0, strpos($string, 'key_x'));
So the whole thing would look like this:
somefile.txt:
Registration Number: valuea
Applicant Name: valueb
PHP Code:
$file = file_get_contents('./somefile.txt');
$string = substr($file, 0, strpos($file, 'key_x'));
$string = preg_replace('~^(.+?):\s+(.+?)$~m', '$1=$2', $string);
$string = str_replace(array("\r\n", "\r", "\n"), '&', $string);
$result = array();
parse_str($string, $result);
echo '<pre>';
print_r($result);
echo '</pre>';
Output:
Array
(
[Registration_Number] => valuea
[Applicant_Name] => valueb
)

Answer 2

as far as I get it you can use file() to get an array of strings and then parse these strings with some regexp.
if you add a = sign between names and values, you'll be ble to get the whole thing at once using parse_ini_file()

Answer 3

Assuming your keys (namea, nameb) never have spaces in them:
$contents = file('some_file.txt'); // read file as array
$data = array();
foreach($contents as $line) { // iterate over file
preg_match('/^([^\s]+)\s+(.*)/', $line, $matches); // pull out key and value into $matches
$key = $matches[1];
$value = $matches[2];
$data[$key] = $value; // store key/value pairs in $data array
}
var_dump($data); // what did we get?