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I have a text file ("file.txt"):

5 (blah-blah) 001  
2 (blah) 006

With a PHP code to find the first word, expression in parentheses, and last 3- or 4-digit numbers by searching for a pattern in line[number]: 

<?php  
// file  
$file = file("file.txt");  

/* first line */
// match first word (number)  
preg_match("/^(\d+)/",$file[0],$first_word);  

// match expression within parentheses  
preg_match("/(?<=\().*(?=\))/s",$file[0],$within_par);  

// match last 3- & 4-digit numbers  
preg_match("/(\d{3,4})?(?!.*(\d{3,4}))/",$file[0],$last_word); 

/* repeats (second line) */  
preg_match("/^(\d+)/",$file[1],$first_word2);  
preg_match("/(?<=\().*(?=\))/s",$file[1],$within_par2);  
preg_match("/(\d{3,4})?(?!.*(\d{3,4}))/",$file[1],$last_word2); 
<?php

And an HTML code to display the matches line by line:

<div>
    <p><?php echo $first_word[0] ?></p>
    <p><?php echo $within_par[0] ?></p>
    <p><?php echo $last_word[0] ?></p>
</div>
<div>
    <p><?php echo $first_word2[0] ?></p>
    <p><?php echo $within_par2[0] ?></p>
    <p><?php echo $last_word2[0] ?></p>
</div>

But I would like to be able to display all the matches without having to list each one individually, both in my PHP code and HTML code. I would like to use preg_match_all to search in the text file, then foreach all matches, and echo/return each one, one div (with three patterns) at a time. (I have tried several different ways but I get an Array as a result.) What code can accomplish this?

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2 Answers 2

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0 
<?php

$string = "5 (blah-blah) 001  
2 (blah) 006";

$result = preg_match_all("/(\d+)\s+\((.*?)\)\s+(\d+)/", $string, $matches);

if (count($matches) > 0) {
    unset($matches[0]);

    $sets = array();

    foreach ($matches as $key => $value) {
        foreach ($value as $key2 => $value2) {
            $sets[$key2][] = $value2;
        }
    }

    foreach ($sets as $key => $values) {
        echo '<div style="background-color: red;">';
        foreach ($values as $ind => $value) {
            echo '<p>'.$value.'</p>';
        }
        echo '</div>';
    }

    // Direct output (without an internal loop)
    foreach ($sets as $key => $values) {
        echo '<div style="background-color: orange;">';
        echo '<p>'.$values[0].'</p>';
        echo '<p>'.$values[1].'</p>';
        echo '<p>'.$values[2].'</p>';
        echo '</div>';
    }
}

?>

Now $sets will contain your values in the correct collection. I've added a foreach loop to print out the data as you want it.

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8 Comments

This is great! But I would like to echo each value separately, where it says: echo '<div>'; foreach ($values as $ind => $value) { echo '<p>'.$value.'</p>'; } echo '</div>'; So it would say something like: echo '<div>'; foreach ($values as $ind => $value) { echo '<p>'.$value1.'</p>'; echo '<p>'.$value2.'</p>'; echo '<p>'.$value3.'</p>'; } echo '</div>'; Where value1 is the first number, value2 the expression in parentheses, and value3 the last three numbers.
echo '<p>'.$values[0].'</p>'; where you can just use the INDEX keys [0] [1] [2] to access the different Array entries. I've updated the answer for you with an extra section to demo it.
How can I make this code work for preg_match_all("/(?<=\/).+/", $string, $matches), to find the text after the slash in a string, e.g. "/blah blah" ? Using preg_match works when I use foreach($matches as $match){ echo $match }, which outputs "blah blah". I would like to get all the matches like the above example, but preg_match_all does not work using the new pattern. Can you help me out?
What are you trying to achieve? The regex in my answer already strips the content between the ( ). It's better to maybe do string modification on those results, instead of "regex-ing" it even more, making it harder to decipher. I can add a little example in the answer if you can explain what you are trying to achieve. Actually this is a second question; next time don't hesitate to just make a new question from it in general. Long comment-chats isn't the way StackOverflow works :)
Like I said, instead of having 1 (blah) 001 and 2 (blah) 002, I have /blah , /blah blah , and I would like to use preg_match_all, with the regex /(?<=\/).+/ to capture the text after the slash and use your code to echo all the matches, but it does not seem to work with that regex.
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0

You can extract your data using:

$matches = array();
preg_match_all("/([0-9]+) \(([a-zA-Z-]+)\) ([\d]+)/", $text, $matches);

example, on the text:

$text = "5 (blah-blah) 001 \n 6 (bloh-bloh) 002";

The result will be:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => 5 (blah-blah) 001
            [1] => 6 (bloh-bloh) 002
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [0] => 5
            [1] => 6
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [0] => blah-blah
            [1] => bloh-bloh
        )

    [3] => Array
        (
            [0] => 001
            [1] => 002
        )
)

So, if you read the content of the file with file_get_contents, you should be able to apply the preg_match_all and retrieve all your data.

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1 Comment

Escaping ( and ) like that in PHP fails. I tried it too, but seems to trigger an error.

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