[RESOLVED] Stripping chars in a string

mhodge87

I have a string that is basically a lat/long coordinate that looks like:

N040.00.28.1644 W082.53.38.0000

I use str_replace to get it to look like the above. My question is now, how do I strip off the above items that are bold. Now this above number is dynamic.

In my mind this is how I would do it:

Get the char, put it in a variable and replace it. The problem I see with that is if I used a str_replace on the variable in this case 4, it would replace all the 4's with whatever I told it to, and I only need it to replace one.

jib0

Try this:

$str = 'N040.00.28.1644 W082.53.38.0000';
echo preg_replace('/^(N[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+)[0-9]{1} (W[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+)[0-9]{1}$/', '\1 \2', $str);

Of course, you can be more precise in the regular expression depending on your format (add east and south, latitude and longitude intervals, etc.)

mhodge87

that didn't work, its still showing the same as before.

Kudose

If you just want to drop off the last character of each string, you could use this:

<?php
$str = 'N040.00.28.1644 W082.53.38.0000';
$arr = explode("\x20", $str);
$arr[0] = substr($arr[0], 0, strlen($arr[0])-1);
$arr[1] = substr($arr[1], 0, strlen($arr[1])-1);
$str = implode("\x20", $arr);
?>

<?php
$str = 'N040.00.28.1644 W082.53.38.0000';
$arr = explode("\x20", $str);
foreach($arr as $key => $val)
  $arr[$key] = substr($val, 0, strlen($val)-1);
$str = implode("\x20", $arr);
?>

laserlight

It might be clearer to write:

<?php
$str = 'N040.00.28.1644 W082.53.38.0000';
$arr = explode(' ', $str);
$arr[0] = substr($arr[0], 0, -1);
$arr[1] = substr($arr[1], 0, -1);
$str = implode(' ', $arr);
?>

Kudose

pssh ... shortcuts. 😉

mhodge87

That works, now I have a question. I have a date and time string that comes to my script as:

20080307184648

Is there a way to "explode" that string by char length, so for example

$string = exploded time string by char count

$string[0] == 2008;
$string[1] == 0307184648;

laserlight

Is there a way to "explode" that string by char length, so for example

You can use [man]substr/man.

mhodge87

thanks!