Help! HOWTO match codes stored in database & present in string

[az_jassal]

I have another simple question, please could someone make this clearer for me.

I have a databases full of codes, i.e.

CODE NAME

@A1 TEA
@A3 COFFEE
@A4 MILK

etc etc,

and I have strings, which are like the following:

"TETLEY @A1" or "NESTLE @A3"

What function would I use to "search" the string for one of the codes in the database, so I could pull the entire details of the item?

Many Thanks!

[khjart]

It's not so easy to know how to write it not knowing much about your system, but if all your strings are on the form "XXXXX @XX" this should work.

$string = "TETLEY @A1";
preg_match("/(@[A-Z][0-9])/",$string,$match);
echo "Found: ".$match[1];

If there also are codes like "@AB12":

preg_match("/(@[A-Z]+[0-9]+)/",$string,$match);

Use preg_match_all() if you have several codes on one string.

[az_jassal]

Thanks for your help! I have decided now that all my codes will have an @ sign followed by 2 figures, which could be numbers, letters or a combination, i.e.:

@A1
@AA
@11

How could I make the code work with this? Thanks!

[Shrike]

It's good not to build logic into your data. That's some pretty good advice, redesign your database so you can select data without having to look for inherent meaning.

table ingredients
----------------------
id, ingredient
e.g.
ID 1
NAME tea
ID 2
NAME milk

table products
------------------
id, product
e.g.
ID 1
NAME tea_with_milk

table crossref
--------------------------
id_product, id_ingredient
e.g.
1,1
1,2

$product = "tea_with_milk";
$result = mysql_query("SELECT t1.ingredient FROM ingredients as t1, products as t2, crossref as t3  WHERE t2.product = '".$product."' AND t2.id = t3.id_product AND t1.id = t3.id_ingredient");

The cross reference table is necessary to allow you an unlimited number of products and ingredients (without using 'intelligent' data).

Sorry if I misunderstood the problem 🙂

[az_jassal]

The problem I have is that I have strings of data coming in from external sources in the following format:

"TETLEY TEA FOR SALE @A4"

Where @A4 can be present anywhere in the string. @A4 is actually the product code, stored in my database.

Codes can be in the format @(digit or letter)(digit or letter)

All I want some PHP that will extract this code from the string!

Using PREG_MATCH is fine, all I wanted to know is how I adapt it to @(digit or letter)(digit or letter)

Thanks for your help!

[khjart]

preg_match("/(@[A-Z0-9][A-Z0-9])/",$string,$match)