[RESOLVED] Simple associative array help

[ugasucks]

I've been trying to tighten up some data structures in a newsletter-mailing application, and desperately need some help.

Here's my problem: I have a list of ~2,000 email addresses from subscribers in a flat file on disk. Due to the newsletter being personalized per domain, I'd like to read the entire file into a structure like this:

aol.com->[sherrij, foobar]
mindspring.net->[tom111, t23s,13223]
lycos.com->[dog,cat,tree]

where the index (key?) of the array is the domain, and it points to another array of actual user names.

my thought process is that i could use array_key_exists to search the array for an existing domain; if it exists, i'll then push it onto the array the domain points to.

does anyone have any recommendations on the best way to approach this? i have a pure C background, and associative arrays are very new to me. i'm currently RTFM, but any code snippets would be greatly appreciated

Thanks!!!

[devinemke]

not sure i understand. do you already have the array or are you asking how to create it? you say the data is in a text file. is the example just posted the actual formatting of the text file or is that pseudo-code just to demonstrate your array structure?

[wilku]

I'd do this that way (havn't checked it for errors):

//get contets of file, assuming one e-mail per line
$emails = file("foo.txt");

$result = array();

//a loop for all elements of an array
foreach ($emails as $e)
{
   $dat = split("@",$e);
   if (array_key_exists($dat[1],$result))
      $result[$dat[1]].=" ".$dat[0];
   else
      $result[$dat[1]]=$dat[0];
}

You're endig up with array that have keys like domains and values like
users divided by spaces. You can use explode values by space to turn string into an array (for every value).

[futureshock]

Wilku Thanks

You just solved a problem for me with dynamicly filling an associative array.

The solution was sooo simple, but sometimes its hard to see the forest through the trees.

Thanks