Parsing Text Files

[jeffgman]

cyberlew15 wrote:

Well I'm not sure about parsing MBox files as I'm not sure if MBox is the app or just Mailbox as in any mailbox. use the code blow to explode each e-mail into it's individual lines then you will know which line you are on if $line[5]; has the question on it then it will actually be line 6 of the e-mail

$lines_of_mail  = array_map('trim', file('./path_to_inbox/currentmail.mailext'));

An mbox format mailbox means each e-mail is actually stored in one large text file. Each e-mail starts with a FROM header. That is how the imap or pop server knows where each new e-mail starts in this huge text file. I guess I can do that same thing to try and figure out where each new e-mail starts. I just need to figure out how to parse files.

Jeff

[konsu]

please post a sample file that you need to parse.

[jeffgman]

konsu wrote:

please post a sample file that you need to parse.

Here you go:

From: nobody [[e-mail]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 2:48 PM
To: e-mail address
Subject: Website Feedback Survey


**Merchandise Selection**

Merchandise in stock?                                  Average
Advertised merchandise in stock?                       Good
Merchandise assortment selection                       Good
Merchandise comment:


**Store**

Store clean and organized?                             Good
Store hours convenient?                                Good
Store locations convenient?                            Average


**Sales Associates/Cashiers**

Sales people helpful, friendly, and knowledgeable?     Good
Cashiers helpful, friendly, and quick?                 Good


Additional Comments:



E-Mail: [e-mail]

Store most frequently shopped in?  Pasadena

[konsu]

which lines out of these do you want to parse? the ones that have "good", "average" and, I assume, "excellent" at the end? are all other lines ignored?

[jeffgman]

konsu wrote:

which lines out of these do you want to parse? the ones that have "good", "average" and, I assume, "excellent" at the end? are all other lines ignored?

I am sorry, I should have stated. Yes, I want each line which has the good, average, excellent. Plus, the two on the bottom. The e-mail address and which store they shop in.

Thanks for any help you can offer me.

Jeff

[konsu]

try using regular expressions on each line like:

^(.+)[ \t]+(good|average|excellent)[ \t]+$

does this make sense?

[jeffgman]

konsu wrote:

try using regular expressions on each line like:

^(.+)[ \t]+(good|average|excellent)[ \t]+$

does this make sense?

Sort of. But, how do I know which line I am on? For each line, I want the answer to go into a different variable and written to a different field in the database.

I was thinking of doing something like this:

 #!/usr/bin/php
$dir = opendir(/home/jeff/survey/);
while (($file = readdir($dir))) {
        if(is_file($file)) {
                if(!($fileArray = file($file))) {
                        printf("could not open $file file);
                }
                for ($i=0; $i < count ($fileArray); $i++) {
                      if ($i == "Merchandise in stock?") {
                          $stock1 = substr($i,56,9);
                          $stock1 = trim($stock1);
                      }

                  if ($i == "Advertised merchandise in stock?") {
                      $stock2 = substr($i,56,9);
                      $stock2 = trim($stock2);
                  }
// and so on and so on
                }
        }
closedir($dir); 

I know my code is not correct, but that is the idea I have. Would that work?

[konsu]

the regular expression matches a string of characters (question) followed by empty space followed by a single word. once the regular expression matches, you can extract the question string from the first group and check which one it is. depending on that you can create a database query that saves the data.

[jeffgman]

konsu wrote:

the regular expression matches a string of characters (question) followed by empty space followed by a single word. once the regular expression matches, you can extract the question string from the first group and check which one it is. depending on that you can create a database query that saves the data.

Okay, that makes sense. But, I have no idea how to write that code. Could you give me some pointers?

Thanks again for all of your help. I have learned quite a bit during this discussion.

Jeff

[jeffgman]

konsu wrote:

the regular expression matches a string of characters (question) followed by empty space followed by a single word. once the regular expression matches, you can extract the question string from the first group and check which one it is. depending on that you can create a database query that saves the data.

Would it be something like this:

 #!/usr/bin/php
$dir = opendir(/home/jeff/survey/);
while (($file = readdir($dir))) {
        if(is_file($file)) {
                if(!($fileArray = file($file))) {
                        printf("could not open $file file);
                }
                for ($i=0; $i < count ($fileArray); $i++) {
                      if ($i =~ ^(.+)[ \t]+(excellent|good|average|fair|poor)[ \t]+$) {
                          $stock1 = substr($i,56,9);
                          $stock1 = trim($stock1);
                      }

                  if ($i =~ ^(.+)[ \t]+(excellent|good|average|fair|poor)[ \t]+$) {
                      $stock2 = substr($i,56,9);
                      $stock2 = trim($stock2);
                  }
// and so on and so on
                }
        }
closedir($dir);

[jeffgman]

Never mind. I just re-read the code I pasted, and it will not work. Once I get to work this morning, I will see if I can figure this out.

Jeff