[RESOLVED] Text Data File into String

jkrystof

I'm opening a .txt file of names that looks like below,

joe bob jim sam

I would like to put these names into a variable so that if I recall them it comes up

$variable[1] = joe

rather than

$variable[1] = j

Right now I can do the second using fgets for the length of the file but it returns just the letter, rather than full name, for the specific index. I know it's a newbie question but I appreciate the help!

Thanks in advance

Joe🙂

NogDog

Just to cover all (many?) bases, I might do:

$text = trim(file_get_contents($file));
$nameArray = preg_split('/\s+/', $text);

jkrystof

thanks for the reply. i gave this a try and all my output says is

Array

The word Array isn't included in the text file.

This is what I'm doing:

$file = fopen("....names.txt","r");

$text = trim(file_get_contents($file));
$nameArray = preg_split('/\s+/', $text);

echo $nameArray;

What is the best way to display and call each index in $nameArray so for instance the first name Joe shows up. I used printf a few ways too and 'Array' is still what came up. Thanks for your help.

Paavero

You can't echo an entire array.
You'll need to either echo $array[key]; or, if you're just trying to view the contents of the array, use print_r($array);

jkrystof

so how would i display say the 3rd entry named jim?

echo $array[3] ...?

I did try this as well with no luck so I'm guessing I'm wrong on that too.
thanks :queasy:

Paavero

jim would be 2 (and sam would be 3) as array keys natively start from 0, not 1.
So to get "jim" printed, you'd use echo $nameArray[2]; 🙂

jkrystof

right my mistake, but either way it should of been sam coming up in the case of nameArray[3], which doesn't happen.

I'm not quite sure where I'm going wrong and I know this should be a simple solution.

Paavero

What does this line of code print out for you?

echo "<pre>"; print_r($nameArray); echo "</pre>";

jkrystof

Array
(
[0] =>
)

Thats what is displayed. I'm not sure how it's empty. The file is there, it has the names.

$file = fopen("\names.txt","r");


$text = trim(file_get_contents($file));
$nameArray = preg_split('/\s+/', $text);

echo "<pre>"; print_r($nameArray); echo "</pre>";

That is what I have as of now.

NogDog

There is no need to use fopen(), as file_get_contents() does its own fopen/fclose functionality. Just set $file to the desired file name (or use the string literal directly in the file_get_contents() call). In any case "\names.txt" will be a problem as within a double-quoted string literal "\n" is treated as a newline character.

$file = "names.txt";

$text = trim(file_get_contents($file));
$nameArray = preg_split('/\s+/', $text);

echo "<pre>"; print_r($nameArray); echo "</pre>";

bradgrafelman

And since [man]file_get_contents/man takes a string as its parameter, not a file resource, you would have known something was wrong had you enabled display_errors and set error_reporting to E_ALL to debug your code.

Also, note that '\names.txt' and 'names.txt' are two very different paths (one is an absolute path and one is a relative path). Is this names.txt file in the root of your drive or is it in the same folder as the script that is being executed?

foyer

I might use

$array = explode(" ",$file_contents);

NogDog

foyer;10897746 wrote:
I might use

$array = explode(" ",$file_contents);

That will work fine as long as you are sure that each element is separated by one and only one space. My preg_split() suggestion will be more forgiving as it will explode the string on spaces, tabs, and/or newlines while treating multiple consecutive white-space characters as a single separator.