simple script help

[guest]

Im trying to create a script that will take out all the "{" "}" and everything in between them
EX:From

"Comment" { removethis { Gone! " and remove all of this" } }

To:This

Comment

this is what i got so far

<?php
$Data = include ("buddylist.txt");

$Data = str_replace("{(.*)}", "", $Data);
print "$Data";
?>

but i dont know how to make it work.. and I would also like to be able to remove the " from were it says comment (but dont delete whats inbetween the first quotes

[Kudose]

I think you should be looking at [man]preg_replace/man and [man]ereg_replace/man instead of str_replace. I am pretty sure you can't use regular expressions or pattern matching in str_replace. But other than that, your along the right lines...

[guest]

:mad: Its not working for me i tried preg_replace() and ereg_replace() but i can seem to get it right.. could someone help writeing the script
(if it includes a text file instead of a php will that make it not work? i dont think it wont but just wondering)

[xblue]

a) I wouldn't have thought include would work the way you expect it all, returning the content of the file in a way you can assign it to a variable - if it does, fine with me. if not, replace it with e.g.

$Data = file("buddylist.txt");
$Data = implode('', $Data);

b) Without regular expressions you may not get far at all (though I've seen lots of workaraounds for a lot of different tasks from folks who seem to dislike regular expressions). With regular expression it may get tricky to match nested items. Assuming there is not more than one comment per file

$Data = preg_replace("/\{(.*)\}/s", "", $Data); 

should work fine even if there are nested {}.

[guest]

ok i did what you said and that script isnt working right still after it removes the first "{" it shows whats before that one but then it stops and everything after that on the page is gone

from:this

topic1{
BuddyNote {
NoteString comment 1
}
}
topic2 {
BuddyNote {
NoteString comment 2
}
}
topic3{
BuddyNote {
NoteString comment 3
}
}
topic4
topic5
topic6
topic7
topic8
topic9 {
BuddyNote {
NoteString comment 4
}
}

to only this with the php

topic1

any more help on how to take out the "{}"?

[Shrike]

Perhaps you should use a CSV file, you wouldn't have to worry about pattern matching at all then.

[guest]

Ok if i convert it to a cvs file what do i have to do from there on? because i converted it to a .cvs file and then opened it and the same thing happen only "topic1" was shown

[guest]

please.... any help

[Shrike]

You would need to change the format of the file to be CSV (comma separated value). I'm guessing here about what you actually want data you want to show.

// Example CSV data - myfile.csv
A Comment,Shrike,20041125
Another comment,Guest,20041124

$fhandle = fopen("myfile.csv", "r");
while($line = fgetcsv($fhandle, 1000))
{
  echo "Posted by ". $line[1] ." (" . date("Y/m/d", strtotime($line[2])) . ")<br>" . $line[0] . "<br><br>";
}

Read up at the [MAN]fgetcsv[/MAN] page.

[paulnaj]

Just in case anyone's still interested in the regex route ...

<?php
$string = '"Comment" { removethis { Gone! " and remove all of this" } } "Comment2" { removethis2 }';
$pattern = '/{[^{}]*}/';
while(preg_match($pattern, $string)){
	$string = preg_replace($pattern, '', $string);
}
echo $string;
?>

... works on a line by line basis.

Paul 😉