extracting variables from emails, functions to use

[lajkonik86]

hey, im trying to extract variables from emails.
the format is like this

nameofperson: Peter
dateofbirth: 06 12 86

etc.

my approach would be to run explode to separate the section from the email i need.
then run explode to cut the email in separate lines
then run explode on the : to separate the variable name and its value.

how would you approach it and which php functions do you recommend?

[NogDog]

You could use [man]preg_match/man:

<?php
$text = "
blah blah blah
nameofperson: Peter
yadda yadda yadda
dateofbirth: 06 12 86
end of message
";
$name = (preg_match('/nameofperson:\s*(\w+)/', $text, $matches)) ?
        $matches[1] : '';
$dob  = (preg_match('/dateofbirth:\s*(\d+\s\d+\s\d+)/', $text, $matches)) ?
        $matches[1] : '';
printf("<p>Name: %s, Date of Birth: %s</p>\n", $name, $dob);
?>

[lajkonik86]

interesting, that might come in handy.

thing is that the variables are not always the same.
one text might containe.

name: peter
age: 28

the other

name: peter
designation: CEO

the number of possible variable names is rather small though so i could foreach that function on an array. probably your approach is a lot better than using explodes, thanks 🙂

[NogDog]

How about this?

<?php
$text = "
blah blah blah
name: peter
age: 28
designation: CEO
end of message
";
preg_match_all('/\b(.+):\s*(.+)\b/', $text, $matches);
foreach($matches[1] as $key => $value)
{
   $values[$value] = $matches[2][$key];
}
printf("<pre>%s</pre>\n", print_r($values, 1));
?>

[lajkonik86]

freaking genius