I have been working on a PHP webpage to help me parse lots of data. It works but I would like it more robust .
So on my main page I have a text area that you can copy in as much information as you want. You click submit posts the data into a page that processes it
here is the code currently that parses it
foreach ($textAr as $line)
if (substr( $line, 0, 2 ) == "IN")
{
$line2 = $line;
$textAr2 = explode("", $line2);
$textAr2 = array_filter($textAr2, 'trim'); // remove any extra characters left behind
foreach ($textAr2 as $line2)
{
$length = strlen($line2);
if ( $length == 10)
{
if (substr( $line2, 0, 2 ) == "IN")
{
$count++;
$line3 = ltrim($line2, 'IN');
echo $line3 . ",";
}
}
}
}
the data that I input always has a format of
names dates times summary stuffs infostuffs stats names dates IN*somenumber
names dates times summary stuffs infostuffs names dates IN*somenumber
names dates times summary stuffs infostuffs stats names dates IN*somenumber
names dates times summary stuffs infostuffs stats dates IN*somenumber
names dates times summary stuffs infostuffs stats names dates IN*somenumber
names dates times summary stuffs infostuffs stats names dates IN*somenumber
names dates times summary stuffs infostuffs stats names None IN*somenumber
names dates times summary stuffs infostuffs stats names dates IN*somenumber
This works great, I know its not the most efficient but it works.
However I want to make it more robust and I'm failing due to lack of coding knowledge. It is always going to be searching for a string that starts with "IN" and has 8 numbers after it. After that it strips the IN out and put it into a continuous string of numbers like 88888888,88888888,88888888,88888888,88888888,88888888,
The , is critical as I use it for csv stuff
I want it to handle other formats here are a few examples are some things that it can't handle that I want it to from above if I add another "IN*somenumber" at the end of the format it doesn't parse it
names dates times summary stuffs infostuffs stats names dates IN88888888 IN88888888
in the above example all it would return is "88888888," completely missing the second one
Other item I would want it to parse is
IN88888888
IN88888888
IN88888888
IN88888888
IN88888888
IN88888888
when it finishes the output is
88888888,
IN88888888
IN88888888
IN88888888
IN88888888
IN88888888
Any help or suggestions would be great I have been trying to search on w3schools for like just a generic search function with wild cards but have not came up with any here is what I think would be ideal
do util end of string(Posted textarea)
$output = search("IN" . any8numbers);
echo $output . ",";
Edit1: Based on suggestion here are some things I have done I tried using a strrpos() as its case insensative but not sure its exactly what I need as it only finds the first or last occurrence (based on what version you use) I have also tried to use more explode into array and that gets complicated quickly. I believe it is making the problem worse with that as it makes it harder to change in the future if I want to change contents because each explode is relying on the above ones to parse correctly. If it doesn't then it all gets messed up.
I ususally debug this code with basic echos as company laptop will only allow notepad ++ and the PHP server gives no logs and I have no access to it besides storing and running pages
Maybe I should take the text area explode it into an array of individual strings then test if each item in the arry starts with 'IN' then strip it.
Other suggestions?
