Parsing a file

[r4nd0mch4r]

Hi!

I'm trying to parse a file that looks like this:

{ data 1 } { garbage data }
{ data 3 } { garbage data }
{ data 3 } { garbage data }

And at the end I'd like to get an array with data1, data2 and data3 in it - but I'm not really sure how to do it! (:
If there weren't any garbage data in between I'd just use explode but in this case... I'm lost...

ALSO, is it possible to jump in a file forward and backward for an arbitrary number of characters?

Thanks!
r4

[planetsim]

So what are you wanting to do again? More specific this time.

[r4nd0mch4r]

🙂

I'd like to read the file and put everything between the { } in an array.

Except the garbage data, that's also between the {}.

[Installer]

$lines = file($data_file);
foreach ($lines as $line) {
    $datum = substr($line, 0, strpos($line, '}'));
    $data[] = trim($datum, '{');
}

[r4nd0mch4r]

Thanks!

But, what do I do when there's a lot of uninportant data in the file?
Example:

random data
{ data 1 }
random data
random data
{ data 2 }

Is it possible to just jump to the next {} ?

[Installer]

[QUOTE]I'm trying to parse a file that looks like this:quote:

{ data 1 } { garbage data }
{ data 3 } { garbage data }
{ data 3 } { garbage data }
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/QUOTE]Sorry, I didn't realize the situation you described wasn't the actual situation.

This should work:

$lines = file($data_file); 
foreach ($lines as $line) { 
    if ((($pos_1 = strpos($line, '{')) === false) ||
        (($pos_2 = strpos($line, '}')) === false) ||
        ($pos_1 > $pos_2)) {
        continue;
    } else {  

        $datum = substr($line, $pos_1, $pos_2); 
        $data[] = trim($datum, '{}');
    } 
}

If not, some minor adaptations to the code should do it.