Help parsing text file into $vars

gsf600y

I'm having real trouble parsing a text file into variables.

A small example of the text file is below:

1. SomeArtist - Trackname (5:35)<br>
2. Another Artist - Another Track Name (4:02)<br>
3. Yet Another Artist - Track (Name) (2:37)<br>
etc.....

So, what I want to put the artist, track name and length into vars.
Note track 3 has brackets in the track name, which is making it hard for me to get the length and track name properly.
I'm struggling here, and all I've come up with is:

<?PHP 

$contents = file('music.txt');

echo "<table cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0>
<tr><td><b>Artist</b></td><td><b>Track</b></td><td><b>Length</b></td></tr>";

foreach($contents AS $row){
$parts = explode(" - ", $row);
$artist = $parts[0];
$track = $parts[1];
$parts = explode(". ", $artist);
$artist = $parts[1];
$parts = explode(" (", $track);
$track = $parts[0];
$length = $parts[1];

echo "<tr><td>".$artist."</td><td>".$track."</td><td>".$length."</td></tr>";
}

?>

....and this just looks bad to me and doesn't work properly.

Help anyone???
Thanks 🙂

mtimdog

Try something like this

$contents = file('music.txt');

echo "<table cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0>
<tr><td><b>Artist</b></td><td><b>Track</b></td><td><b>Length</b></td></tr>";

foreach($contents AS $row){
$parts = explode(" - ", $row);
$artist = $parts[0];
$track = $parts[1];
$parts = explode(":", $track);
$track = substr($parts[0],0, -2);
$length = substr($parts[0], -2) .":". $parts[1];

echo "<tr><td>".$artist."</td><td>".$track."</td><td>".$length."</td></tr>";
}

That should work unless you have ':' inside the trackname which is less likely than '('

LordShryku

I'd use some reverse string functions. Like so...

foreach($contents as $row){
   /* get rid of the <br>. don't need it in an array */
   $row = str_replace("<br>","",$row);
   /* get the artist */
   $parts  = explode(" - ",$row);
   $artist = $parts[0];
   /* get the time by looking for the
    * _last_ occurance of "(", then
    * get artist as everything before that
    */
   $time  = strrchr($parts[1],"(");
   $track = substr($parts[1],0,strrpos($parts[1],"(")-1);
   echo "<tr><td>".$artist."</td><td>".$track."</td><td>".$time."</td></tr>";
}

gsf600y

thanks guys.
LordShryku, your code worked excellently 🙂 Thank you a lot.

I added:
$parts[1] = $parts[1].$parts[2];
as some of the track names had more than one - in.

🙂