I have a plain text journal I'm trying to format in php. I'd like to split each entry into an array containing date and text.
Using preg_split I can do this, however it removes the date altogether!
The txt file looks something like this:
2012-01-28
text text text
2012-01-14
some other text
2011-12-07
a previous entry
etc.
the PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE flag will prevent your dates from being removed when you split, as long as the date is parenthesized in your pattern string. e.g.:
$array = preg_split('/(\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2})/', $text, null, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);
Now your dates are in the odd indices of the array and your content is in the even indices.
By all means you can preg_match_all:
$matches = array();
preg_match_all('~(?P<date>\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2})\s*(?P<text>.*)~ms', $subject, $matches);
Might need to meddle with it a bit to fit your content.
Results into a structure like
matches => {
date(3) => {"2012-01-28", ... }
...
text(3) => {"text text text", ...}
which can easily be utilized or transformed into custom sctructure.
preg_split()code looks like?