[RESOLVED] How do I preg_match_all an uneven pattern?

psunshine

Hi,

Maybe this cant be done with regular expressions or maybe I am a complete newbie which is why I am posting here 🙂

I have a list of items each on newlines that can look like this:

I have used preg_match_all before to break each subpattern in the item in to an array which can then be inserted to database, but that has always been where the pattern in item follows the same structure for each line

if (preg_match_all('/<item><1>(.+)</1><2>(.+)</2><3>(.+)</3><4>(.+)</4></item>/mi', $result, $matches))

where $result looks like this:

So how do I acheive the same when the pattern may or may not contain a certain pattern without missing any pattern? On the same note, is it possible to get $matches to return "none" for the lines which dont contain a pattern for a specific part of the item?

I hope this makes sense and that someone can help. This has been driving me crazy trying to figure it out!

Thanks
Pat

sfullman

first, get rid of the <item></item> manually by preg_replace:

preg_replace('/^{<item>/i','',$line);}

preg_replace('/<\/item>/i$','',$line);

capice? Now here is a better regex I think:
<([a-z0-9]+)[^{>]>((.|\s)?)<\/[a-z0-9]+>}

which I will break down in english

<([a-z0-9]+) = < and any alphanumeric char @least once

[^>]* = anything BUT a > - maybe

= OK now close the opener

((.|\s)*?) = any character or whitespace incl a newline - maybe - and the "?" means don't be greedy past the </1>

<\/[a-z0-9]+> = OK now close the node

See how that works - you'll get an array of all the nodes - the parentheses I chose can provide references to what the node is or just the value of the node

Samuel

psunshine

Thanks Sfullman 🙂

I tried that and it came up with some strange results. I think I have too much trash lying around in the matches for it too work properly. Luckily I received help and was given this:

<?php
	$lines = array(
		'<item><1>abc1</1><2>abc2</2><3>abc3</3><4>abc4</4></item>',
		'<item><1>abc1</1><3>abc3</3><5>abc5</5><6>abc6</6></item>',
		'<item><1>abc1</1><6>abc6</6><2>abc2</2><3>abc3</3></item>'
	);
	$data = array();
	$num = 1;
	foreach ($lines as $line) {
		preg_match_all('%<(\d+)>(.+?)</\1>%', $line, $matches);
		foreach ($matches[1] as $key => $value) {
			$data[$num][$value] = $matches[2][$key];
		}
		++$num;
	}
	foreach ($data as &$line) {
		for ($key = 1; $key <= 6; $key++) {
			if (!array_key_exists($key, $line)) {
				$line[$key] = 'none';
			}
		}
	}
	print_r($data);
?>

Which worked extremely well based on the way my tags are formed. Now the question is how to get the array in to the database. The previous work I have done with preg match and arrays into database has always had all of the same values in one array (i.e. everything between tag <1>(.+)</1> in $matches[1]) which has allowed me to use a simple loop

foreach ($matches[1] as $row=>$one)

and then insert each item to the database.

The array I have from the above is in this format:

Array
(
    [1] => Array
        (
            [1] => Description1
            [4] => Name1
            [6] => Date1
            [8] => URL1
            [2] => none
            [3] => none
            [5] => none
            [7] => none
            [9] => none
            [10] => none
        )

[2] => Array
    (
        [1] => Description2
        [4] => Name2
        [6] =>Date2
        [8] => URL2
        [9] => none
        [10] => Picture2
        [2] => none
        [3] => none
        [5] => none
        [7] => none
    )

[3] => Array
    (
        [1] => Description3
        [2] => Homepage3
        [3] => City3
        [4] => Name3
        [6] => Date3
        [7] => Year3
        [8] => none
        [5] => none
        [9] => none
        [10] => Picture3
    )

[4] => Array
    (
        [1] => Description4
        [2] => Homepage4
        [3] => City4
        [4] => Name4
        [5] => Product4
        [6] => none
        [7] => Year4
        [8] => none
        [9] => none
        [10] => none
    )
)

I am searching high and low to find an answer or at least a good tutorial on how to insert this type of array in to my table where each part of each array represents a different field. Any ideas or pointers?

Thanks
Pat

psunshine

Fully functioning data to array to mysql database 🙂

Thx for all the help!

<?php
	$lines = array(
		'<item><1>abc1</1><2>abc2</2><3>abc3</3><4>abc4</4></item>',
		'<item><1>abc1</1><3>abc3</3><5>abc5</5><6>abc6</6></item>',
		'<item><1>abc1</1><6>abc6</6><2>abc2</2><3>abc3</3></item>'
	);
	$data = array();
	$num = 1;
	foreach ($lines as $line) {
		preg_match_all('%<(\d+)>(.+?)</\1>%', $line, $matches);
		foreach ($matches[1] as $key => $value) {
			$data[$num][$value] = $matches[2][$key];
		}
		++$num;
	}
	foreach ($data as &$line) {
		for ($key = 1; $key <= 6; $key++) {
			if (!array_key_exists($key, $line)) {
				$line[$key] = 'none';
			}
		}
	}

  $map = array(
        1 => 'field1name',
	2 => 'field2',
	3 => 'field3',
	4 => 'field4',
	5 => 'field5',
	6 => 'field6',

  );


  foreach($data as $row){

$dbname = "xxx";
$dbuser = "xxx";
$dbpass = "xxx";
$dbserver = "xxx";
$tablename = "mytable";

mysql_connect($dbserver, $dbuser, $dbpass) or die('Error connecting to mysql');
mysql_select_db($dbname);

$values = array();
foreach($map as $n => $key){
  if(isset($row[$n]))
    $values[$key] = mysql_real_escape_string($row[$n]);
}
$sql = "INSERT INTO `mytable` (`".implode("`,`",array_keys($values))."`) VALUES ('".implode("','",$values)."')";
mysql_query($sql) or die("Error: ".mysql_error());
  }
?>