printing specific elements from array

[raisinlove]

Hello,
I am currently using a text file as an array to generate table rows for each
element like so:

<?
$array1=file("file.txt");
foreach ($array1 as $line)
if (ereg("^{([\t])\t+([\t])\t+([\t]*)$",} trim($line), $element)) {
?>
<tr>
<td><b><?php echo ($element[0]);?></td>
<td><b><?php echo ($element[1]);?></td>
<td><b><?php echo ($element[2]);?></td>
</tr>
<?php
}
?>

No problem, but for another page I would like to print certain elements of
a specific line from "file.txt" by comparing a variable to the first element
of each line.

example, if file.txt contains:

chapter1 Introduction 39pages
chapter2 The Meeting 56pages

chapter3 The End 234pages

I would like to have a script compare the called up variable "$chapter" to
each line in the file, so that if $chapter = "chapter1" , the script would
print "Introduction".

Can anyone help?
Thank you!

[floR]

Could you make 'chapter1', 'chapter2', ... being the array indexes?

So, fill it like:

$book['chapter1']['title'] = 'Introduction';
$book['chapter1']['size'] = '39pages';

$title = $book[$chapter]['title'] // == 'Introduction'

[raisinlove]

But I'm using a text file seperated by lines as my array. I dont see how I could use this:

$book['chapter1']['title'] = 'Introduction';
$book['chapter1']['size'] = '39pages';

Could you explain further?
Thanks

[floR]

Sure. When reading the file into the array, contruct a new array:

$array1=file("file.txt");
foreach ($array1 as $line)
if (ereg("^{([\t])\t+([\t])\t+([\t]*)$",} trim($line), $element)) {
$book[$element[0]]['title'] = $element[1];
$book[$element[0]]['size'] = $element[2];
}

This builds the $book for you.

[raisinlove]

$array1=file("file.txt");
foreach ($array1 as $line)
if (ereg("^{([\t])\t+([\t])\t+([\t]*)$",} trim($line), >$element)) {
$book[$element[0]]['title'] = $element[1];
$book[$element[0]]['size'] = $element[2];
}

Oh I see! I also got a different solution from someone else, which also works. Let me know if you think one is preferable to the other:

$array1=file("file.txt");
foreach ($array1 as $line)
if (ereg("^{([\t])\t+([\t])\t+([\t]*)$",} trim($line), $element))
if ($element[0] == $chapter) {
echo ($element[1]);
echo ($element[2]);
break;
}

[floR]

Depends what you want. The last suggestion is 50% faster on average, since it breaks out of the foreach loops when it has found the chapter.
With my solution you have more flexibility, since the entire book index is available to you throughout the page.