getting a text file into a db

[jpmoriarty]

Okay, I don't like putting up mini "projects" like this but kinda need a start! Any advice that you guys can offer is gratefully received.

As a provisional measure on a site I'm setting up i did a registration form that emailed off the data to an email account. Now i've got around to actually building a web based DB system, and i need to get the 100 or so emails into that db quickly and efficiently.

for example (I won't bore you with the entire thing!):

email data:

01_forenames: VICKY

02_current_surname: ALIMONOU

03_school_surname: 

04_title: MRS

05_address: line1
line2
line3
line4
line5

06_home_phone: [phone]

from: [email][e-mail][/email]

how do i go about automating this input into my db?

My plan at the mo would be to explode on the \n's and then get rid of the blank ones. then probably explode agian on the : and just do each one by hand effectively eg

if($field == "04_title")
{
   // the corresponding db field is Title
   $db['Title']== $value;
}

Does that sound about right? Or does anyone have a stonking suggestion that will save me hours! Many thanks in advance.

[lazzerous]

you could do something like this:

// assumptions:
// exploded array is named $ar
// new array of data to enter into db will be $data

for ($i=0; $i<sizeof($ar); $i++)
  {
  $ar[$i] = trim($ar[$i]);
  // check to see if this entry has an actual value
  // this was exploded using '\n' as a delimiter...
  if (ereg(":", $ar[$i])
    {
    // break up the field name and value into an array
    // after the above 'trim()', we can use the remaining space in the middle as a delimiter
    $line_array = explode(" ", $ar[$i]);
    // lose the dash in the field name
    $line_array[0] = ereg_replace("-", " ", $line_array[0]);
    // populate the new array, $data with the usable values
    $data[$i][field_name] = ereg_replace(":", "", $line_array[0]);
    $data[$i][field_value] = $line_array[1];
    }
  }

something like that...

-=Lazz=-