how to create a variable from a value between two specific groups of characters?

marcnyc

Hello,
I have a variable with lots of text and I want to create a variable from some text between tags... In other words, let's say I have the following:

$var = "This is my text and this is what I want for a new variable and for successive variables";

How can I create a new variables that will have as values the text between the tags? In this case I would like it to return the following:

$bold1 = "what I want";
$bold2 = "successive";

Thanks

Duey

like this:

$bold1 = "what I want"; 
$bold2 = "successive"; 

$var = "This is my text and this is <b>$bold1</b> for a new variable and for <b>$bold2</b> variables";

simple isnt it ^_

Weedpacket

[man]preg_match_all[/man] will do what you're looking for.

A reliable regexp can be a little tricky to figure out from scratch, so here 'tis:

#<b>((?:.(?!</b>))*)</b>#is

(Reads: ", followed by zero or more characters that aren't followed by , followed by ; record the zero or more characters". Ignore that friendly vBulletin-generated space.) It's still not totally reliable if your tags have attributes, but that sounds like a pretty dodgy thing to be doing anyway.

Using preg_match_all, the bold bits will be gathered into an array.

marcnyc

Too easy to be what I want...

The text content of the main variable $var is unknown to me (because the user submits it via a form) and I want that IF the user enters a bold tag then what is between the bold tags is entered in a variable... In other words I cannot preset the variables and I wanna know how to create new variables given the limiting tags and that the user may or may not enter in the $var... In other words if the user enters text but without the tags then no $bold variables will be created but if the user does enter text with tags then according to how many tags there will be there will also be the same number of $bold varibales ($bold1, $bold2, $bold3 etc) which I want to contain what is between the tags...

And by the way, even if what I wanted is what you thought I wanted, should your right example be more like the following?

$bold1 = "what I want";
$bold2 = "successive";

$var = "This is my text and this is ".$bold1." for a new variable and for ".$bold2." variables";

Weedpacket

Originally posted by marcnyc
And by the way, even if what I wanted is what you thought I wanted, should your right example be more like the following?

$bold1 = "what I want";
$bold2 = "successive";

$var = "This is my text and this is ".$bold1." for a new variable and for ".$bold2." variables";

The code given would do what you think Duey thinks you want. But it is the wrong end of the stick.

Duey

maybe just use an eregi_replace() maybe even str_replace()

Weedpacket

Originally posted by Duey
maybe just use an eregi_replace() maybe even str_replace()

...'cept that I don't recall marcnyc wanting to replace anything, just grab a bunch of strings.

marcnyc

maybe you can help me out... what I am trying to do here is a function to convert all links into [LINK] and [/LINK] tags, pretty much the opposite of this board function where, to insert a link you have to put [url] tags around it...

my problem is that I am not sure what the user is going to input... he could enter this:

or this:

or this:

or this:

or ANY combination of any of the above...

so I was wondering if it would be too hard to wring a function that is able to take all these possibilities into account...

Does anybody have an idea?
I couldn't figure it out... too many variables... the single or double quotes, the targets (blank, top, whatever), where the target is put (before or after href) etc etc...

Duey

hmm like this?

$text = eregi_replace("\\[url\\]www.([^\\[]*)\\[/url\\]", "<a href=\"http://www.\\1\" target=_blank>\\1</a>",$text);
$text = eregi_replace("\\[url\\]([^\\[]*)\\[/url\\]","<a href=\"\\1\" target=_blank>\\1</a>",$text);
$text = eregi_replace("\\[url=([^\\[]*)\\]([^\\[]*)\\[/url\\]","<a href=\"\\1\" target=_blank>\\2</a>",$text);
$text = eregi_replace("(^|[>[:space:]\n])([[:alnum:]]+)://([^[:space:]]*)([[:alnum:]#?/&=])([<[:space:]\n]|$)","\\1<a href=\"\\2://\\3\\4\" target=\"_blank\">\\2://\\3\\4</a>", $text);

marcnyc

Thanks for the interesting code but I looks like your code does the opposite thing... besides, the main problem would be that it doesn't take into account all the possible configurations... the user could type in an url using single quotes or double quotes or no quotes at all, they cou write the target as blank, top, new, something, _anything or write no target at all, and they could put the target after or before the href... you know what I mean?

Weedpacket

eregi_replace is antiquated. preg_replace is much more powerful.