removing text from text file

Anon

Hey everyone!

I have a text file that looks like this:

<BMWGUY71> ; [XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX] ; [MM-DD-YYYY HH:MM:SS] ; hey what's up everyone?
<COOLDUDE4U> ; [XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX] ; [MM-DD-YYYY HH:MM:SS] ; hey i'm doing ok

in this text file there are two lines of text, it used in my chat room.

Basically I want to read certain parts of the text file only.

<????> is the chatter's username. [XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX] is the chatter's ip address and then the date, along with the message. Each block of info is seperated by a ' ; '

In the chat window, I want it to print the text file like this..

<BMWGUY71> hey what's up everyone?
<COOLDUDE4U> hey i'm doing ok

The other information is hidden for admin use and shouldn't be printed out. Also at the end of each line i want a break so the person's name will always start to the left of the screen.

I need some help on how to do this.

Thanks so much in advance!

Anon

Well if the text is always ; delimited then you can read each line into a string using the filesystem functions and then split the string on the delimiter using the split function. Since everything looks nice and neat in your example text file, you will always have the parts you need in the same array index. But if you\'re doing something else than this might not work.

HTH

Anon

The following you can use to split the text up

Method 1 use array functions a bit easier
Read the line into a string
$chat_line = "<BMWGUY71> ; [XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX] ; [MM-DD-YYYY HH:MM:SS] ; hey what's up everyone?
";

break apart the string into an array using the explode method. Since each part is seperated by a semi colon you can split the string that by the semi-colon.

array explode (string separator, string string [, int limit])

$chat_array = explode( ";", $chat_line );

this will create an array
$chat_array[0] = "<BMWGUY71> "
$chat_array[1] = "[XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX] "
$chat_array[2] = " [MM-DD-YYYY HH:MM:SS] "
$chat_array[3] = "hey what's up everyone? "

Next combine the items you want
//combine the parts you want
$printable_chat = $chat_array[0] . " " . $chat_array[3];

echo $printable_chat;

Method 2, use string functions to break up text.

Read the line into a string
$chat_line = "<BMWGUY71> ; [XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX] ; [MM-DD-YYYY HH:MM:SS] ; hey what's up everyone?
";

if so you can search for the ; store the first part into a string and contactinate the 2nd ; to the end with that

the following should work
strpos returns the positition of an item in a string. the sytanx is the following

int strpos (string haystack, string needle [, int offset])

// get position of first semi colon
$first_semi = int strpos ($chat_line, ";");

Next use the substring function to extract the beginning of the string

string substr (string string, int start [, int length])

// store only beginning of chat in a temp string
$printable_chat = substr( $chat_line, 0, $first_semi);

Next get the position of hte third semi-colon, use the first semi colon position as the offset

// get position of next semi using the first semi as the offset
$second_semi = int strpos ($chat_line, ";", $first_semi);

// get position of third semi using the second semi as the offset
$third_semi = int strpos ($chat_line, ";", $second_semi);

Next get the substring of the last part of the chat line and combine it with the first part

// get last part of the chat line and combine with first part
$printable_chat .= substr( $chat_line, $third_semi );

the complete code for method 2 is as follows

// get position of first semi colon
$first_semi = int strpos ($chat_line, ";");

// store only beginning of chat in a temp string
$printable_chat = substr( $chat_line, 0, $first_semi);

// get position of next semi using the first semi as the offset
$second_semi = int strpos ($chat_line, ";", $first_semi);

// get position of third semi using the second semi as the offset
$third_semi = int strpos ($chat_line, ";", $second_semi);

// get last part of the chat line and combine with first part
$printable_chat .= substr( $chat_line, $third_semi );

echo $third_semi;