Php Strings manipulations (Extract first word)

Question

I have a paragraph below, that I want from it is the first word of every end of a period.

$paragraph="Microsoft is writing down $6.2 billion of the goodwill within its OSD. It's worth noting that at the time of the acquisition, the company recorded $5.3 billion of goodwill assigned to the OSD, bringing its total carrying balance up to $5.9 billion in September of that year. The goodwill in the OSD had climbed up to $6.4 billion by March of this year, so this accounting charge is wiping out the vast majority of that figure.";

for example, I can do this.

$sentences=explode('.',$paragraph);
print_r( $sentences);

and it prints

Array ( [0] => Microsoft is writing down $6
        [1] => 2 billion of the goodwill within its OSD 
        [2] => It's worth noting that at the time of the acquisition, the company recorded $5 
        [3] => 3 billion of goodwill assigned to the OSD, bringing its total carrying balance up to $5                            
        [4] => 9 billion in September of that year 
        [5] => The goodwill in the OSD had climbed up to $6 
        [6] => 4 billion by March of this year, so this accounting charge is wiping out the vast majority    of that figure 
        [7] => )

however, I was wandering how can one get the first word from every array. for example how is it possible to create a function that will get the first word like the example below:

Microsft 2 it's 3 9 The 4

Thanks

@someGuy, be sure to include the homework tag in the future so people can properly answer the question. — 0b10011
– 0b10011, Commented Jul 4, 2012 at 2:34

0b10011 · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-04 02:02:11Z

3

Use explode() on each sentence, but use a space, instead of a period.

$paragraph = "Microsoft is writing down $6.2 billion of the goodwill within its OSD. It's worth noting that at the time of the acquisition, the company recorded $5.3 billion of goodwill assigned to the OSD, bringing its total carrying balance up to $5.9 billion in September of that year. The goodwill in the OSD had climbed up to $6.4 billion by March of this year, so this accounting charge is wiping out the vast majority of that figure.";

$sentences = explode('.', $paragraph);

foreach($sentences as $sentence){
 $words = explode(' ', trim($sentence));
 $first = $words[0];
 echo $first;
}

edited Jul 4, 2012 at 2:02

answered Jul 4, 2012 at 1:52

0b10011

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7 Comments

someGuy Over a year ago

it would skip some words, I have shared the output.

0b10011 Over a year ago

Sorry about that, forgot to trim() each sentence. Try it now.

someGuy Over a year ago

Thanks, This the trim did the trick, but if I may ask, what the did the trim function did here.

Sebastián Grignoli Over a year ago

It removes spaces from the beginning and ending of each sentence. It is important because you are exploding the sentences using spaces as separators, and if a separator (space) appears at the beginning, the first word will be an empty word and the one you are looking for would be the second.

0b10011 Over a year ago

@someGuy, well, the explode() was returning " It's worth noting..." for $sentences[2], which returned $words = Array([0] => "", [1] => "It's", ...), while you were expecting $words[0] to be "It's". The trim() call simply removed the empty array items from the beginning and end.

|

Ryan Kempt · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-04 02:10:22Z

1

$paragraph="Microsoft is writing down $6.2 billion of the goodwill within its OSD. It's worth noting that at the time of the acquisition, the company recorded $5.3 billion of goodwill assigned to the OSD, bringing its total carrying balance up to $5.9 billion in September of that year. The goodwill in the OSD had climbed up to $6.4 billion by March of this year, so this accounting charge is wiping out the vast majority of that figure.";

firstWords($paragraph);

function firstWords($paragraph) {
  $sentences = explode('.', $paragraph);

  foreach ($sentences as $sentence) {
   $words = explode(' ', trim($sentence));
   echo $words[0];
  }
}

edited Jul 4, 2012 at 2:10

answered Jul 4, 2012 at 1:56

Ryan Kempt

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2 Comments

someGuy Over a year ago

Thanks, but in this one, the ouput would be "MicrosoftIt'sThe", but where is the numbers.

Raj K Over a year ago

The numbers also will come in the result ---Microsoft2It's39The4

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