Search for value in field w/ expode

The_PHP_Newb

I have something like this:

345-123-12-8-

It's stored in a field in the database. I need a query that will search that field to see if let's say '8' exists.

I've tried the explode function but I only know how to do it by assigning each value like this: [0] [1] [2] [3]

The problem is another row in the DB might have this:

345-123-12-8-16-12
or
345-123-

So I don't always know the exact amount of items being exploded.

I think I need a foreach statement with an explode or something but I'm not sure. Any help is appreciated or a link to the PHP Manual with the function I need. Thanks.

sneakyimp

You could try [man]in_array[/man] after you explode the field. Or, you could come up with fancy regex pattern and use [man]preg_match[/man]. Something like this might work:

$needle = 8;
$haystack = '345-123-12-8-16-12';
$pattern = '/(^|-)' . $needle . '($|-)/';
if preg_match($pattern, $haystack) {
    echo 'yes, ' . $needle . ' was found in ' . $haystack;
} else {
    echo 'not found';
}

Krik

EDiT
oops misunderstood, thought he was looking for the 8th part not the actual number 8

yea regular expression are the trick.

NogDog

On the DB side (mysql), you could do:

$search = '8';
$query = "SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE column_name REGEXP '[[:<:]]$search[[:>:]]'";

Weedpacket

Using explode...

in_array('8', explode('-', $field))

But I'm wondering if there's a better way of storing the data in the database in the first place....

The_PHP_Newb

Weedpacket;10882374 wrote:
Using explode...
in_array('8', explode('-', $field))
But I'm wondering if there's a better way of storing the data in the database in the first place....

I'm going to try these. I'm wondering this myself.

I have let's say 5 "groups". Everyone can see the groups except what a user might checkoff to HIDE from 1 particular person. That person's ID goes into the database and that group needs hidden from that person.

Weedpacket

So you want a table that lists groupID/personID pairs so that if group 4 is hidden from person 42 the table contains the pair 4,42.