arrays/database/replace

Skull

OK, well i've not started writing the actual code yet because I don't want to start if theres no way round the problem that I'm going to have. Basically what i'm gonna do is select a row from a table and split it where theres a space and then for every word that is now in the array i'll check for that with a : straight after it.

If it does then i'll colour code it, so if the row is

me: wow

then it'll colour code it, and that i'm fairly certain i can do, but the problem that i'm going to run into is

me me: wow

it won't colour code

me me: wow

, it'll only colour code the

me:wow part

i've been trying to figure out a way for ages now on how to do it so finally decided to post my problem on here, and hope someone replies, so thanks in advance if anyone can help

keith73

how do you know it wont work if you haven't written code?

the only way to see if something will work and to fix something that doesn't work is to write the code.

to do what you want to accomplish, just write a simple script that has a variable that is set to an example of what your string may look like.

$mystring = "me me: wow";

now look at the string functions in the manual and decide which ones may help you. there could be more than one way to do this.

perhaps you should split on the colons instead of spaces. you can then take that a step further and split on the spaces if you want to.

keith

Skull

yeah but lets just say the full string is

the guy walks along the street

guy: hello

guy 2: hi there

the guy walks off

then i can't split it on the colons because then for the first one it'll end up colour coding the guy walks along the street guy: hello

then its not quite going to colour code it as i want, but then if i do it on spaces, then its going to colour code guy:hello and 2: hi there, but thanks for the help i'll have a read through the manual 🙂

keith73

Originally posted by Skull
yeah but lets just say the full string is

the guy walks along the street

guy: hello

guy 2: hi there

the guy walks off

then i can't split it on the colons because then for the first one it'll end up colour coding the guy walks along the street guy: hello

then its not quite going to colour code it as i want, but then if i do it on spaces, then its going to colour code guy:hello and 2: hi there, but thanks for the help i'll have a read through the manual 🙂

well you didn't say there would be line breaks too.

instead of splitting everything like that, use regular expressions to color code anything between a newline character and a colon.

look for the pcre (perl compatible regular expressions) in the manual. You'll probably want to use preg_replace.

keith