please help, I'm stuck!

Siggles

Hi, I was recently given the job of displaying the info in a text file on a php page for an Estate Agents. The text file is comma delimited.

I am quite pleased with how far I have got but I am stuck with something. The text file is here and the HTML page is here. So far so good! The code I use is here.

quote:

<?ph p
$array = file('xfile.txt');
foreach($array as $row) {
$line = explode('","', $row);

print "<table width='600' border='0' align='center' cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' bgcolor='#000000'>
<tr>
<td><table width='600' border='0' cellspacing='1' cellpadding='0' height='54'>
<tr align='center' valign='middle' bgcolor='#6AA3CC'>
<td height='19' colspan='2' align='left'><table width='100%' border='0' cellspacing='0' cellpadding='5'>
<tr><font size='2'>
<td align='left' valign='top'><div align='left'><font face='Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif' size='2'><b>$line[3]</b></font></div></td>
<td align='right' valign='top'><div align='right'><font face='Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif' size='2'>£$line[7]</font></div></td>
</font></tr></table> </td></tr><tr align='center' valign='middle'><td width='32' height='32' align='left'><img src='http://www.londonorient.com/tCITY_$line[1].jpg'></td><td width='565' align='left' valign='top' bgcolor='#FFFFFF'><table width='100%' border='0' cellspacing='0' cellpadding='5'><tr><td align='left' valign='top'><font face='Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif' size='2'><b>Description:</b> $line[38]</font></td> </tr>
</table></td>
</tr>
</table></td>
</tr>
</table><br>";
}
? >
</html>

Up until now I am only able to print the whole array. Eg, If I type

print "$line[2]";

it will print the second element off each line in the text file, in this case the property reference. What if I only wanted to print the reference of a property on the third line of the text file? Do I have to make a multi-dimensional array and if so how do I go about it with the text file?

Thanks

edwardsbc

I'm not sure I understand the question. If you know you need something from the third element of the $array, just refer to it as $array[3]:

$line = explode('","', $array[3]);

Of course you could create a multi-dimentional array with everything in it:

$array = file('xfile.txt'); 
while(list($rowkey,$rowtext)=each($array)) {
  $rowdata=explode('","', $rowtext); 
  while(list($colkey,$colval)=each($rowdata)) {
     $bigarray[$rowkey][$colkey]=$colval;
     }
  }

(Man I hope I did that right...)

bastien

how often does the file change?

if quite often, here is a suggestion.

take the text file and stuff the thing into a DB....via some admin pages or automated scripting...or skip the text file altogether and just shove the data into a DB then

take the db data and show the results...use the row number(or other primary key) as a link to show more info if clicked...you can show summaries on one page and details on the next...more fluid, better data handling, easier to program...i never liked text files...they are less flexible work with and more difficult to manage...but then i an very biased to DBs...

Siggles

Thanks for your replies

I'm not sure I understand the question. If you know you need something from the third element of the $array, just refer to it as $array[3]:

If the text file reads

"Fred","John",Bill","jack"
"Gary","Sam","Bill","Fred"

and with my php code as it stands, typing $array3 will print

jack
Fred

to the screen. I want to be able to just print 'jack'.

In any normal array I guess you would just type print $line[1][3] but with the text file and the code I've used I'm not suyre how to go about it.