Parsing through text

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December 28th, 2012, 09:46 AM

dreamteam

Contributing User

Join Date: May 2004

Posts: 57

Time spent in forums: 7 h 1 m 25 sec
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Parsing through text

I haven't touched PHP in a long time and needed some help.
I have survey and in the survey once you upload the documents, it stores them as such in the database:

[{ },{ "size":"126.189"size":"126.469","name":"RFC_MarketingReqForm.docx","filename":"fu_378r8fczc3u5nen","ext":"docx"","name":"RFC_ARMCBillpay_081412.docx","filename":"fu_ws6t2urxz2qg39c","ext":"docx" },{ "size":"126.469","name":"RFC_MarketingReqForm.docx","filename":"fu_7ahdzpscp5dh82w","ext":"docx" }]

I need to go through this and pull out the filename and ext to create a url link to the documents on a custom reports page that I am creating.

PHP Code:


		
			
 $text = $row['response'];

$newtext = preg_split( "/ (;|\"|{|}|,) /", $text ); 

$newtext = explode(',', $text); 

$count = count($newtext); 

for ($i = 0; $i < $count; $i++) {  

echo $newtext[$i] . "<br />"; 

}

I was trying to break it apart piece by piece, but I realized I am not really sure how to get the filename and ext out alone. Thank you.

December 28th, 2012, 10:11 AM

Jacques1

pollyanna

Join Date: Jul 2012

Location: Germany

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Hi,

whoever designed this database, slap him and don't ever let him near the code again -- I hope it wasn't you?

Sh*t like this is exactly why people preach normalization, but obviously some "developers" still have never heard of it.

OK, so you have a bunch of crap data which looks like JSON. So what you'll have to do is take a JSON parser (if my guess was right) and read out the pieces you want to fetch -- in the hopes that the string isn't broken.

If you have any chance to repair the database, that's actually the first thing you should do.

Do not fumble with home-made regexes. That just makes everything even crappier.

December 28th, 2012, 10:13 AM

dreamteam

Contributing User

Join Date: May 2004

Posts: 57

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It is from LimeSurvey, open source survey system.

I kept on reading and came across the same thing that it is JSON. I am trying to get it to work with json_decode, will update my progress if I succeed.

December 28th, 2012, 05:54 PM

sir_drinxalot

Known to taste like chicken

Join Date: Aug 2003

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Posts: 377

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the data you posted is corrupt. If that is a direct copy/paste from the system then you are in trouble.

I fixed the data up (I had to make up some stuff to fill in the blanks and fix the structure). I ended up with:

Code:

[{ },
{ "size":"126.469","name":"RFC_MarketingReqForm.docx","filename":"fu_378r8fczc3u5nen","ext":"docx" },
{ "size":"126.469","name":"RFC_ARMCBillpay_081412.docx","filename":"fu_ws6t2urxz2qg39c","ext":"docx" }, 
{ "size":"126.469","name":"RFC_MarketingReqForm.docx","filename":"fu_7ahdzpscp5dh82w","ext":"docx" }]

that let me call json_decode() on it, which output this array:

Code:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [size] => 126.469
            [name] => RFC_MarketingReqForm.docx
            [filename] => fu_378r8fczc3u5nen
            [ext] => docx
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [size] => 126.469
            [name] => RFC_ARMCBillpay_081412.docx
            [filename] => fu_ws6t2urxz2qg39c
            [ext] => docx
        )

    [3] => Array
        (
            [size] => 126.469
            [name] => RFC_MarketingReqForm.docx
            [filename] => fu_7ahdzpscp5dh82w
            [ext] => docx
        )

)

so from that you could get the filename using a loop and:

PHP Code:


		
			
 $filename = $array[$i]['filename'].".".$array[$i]['ext'];

also bare in mind that json_decode($jsondata,true) will give you an assoc array which you can reference like i did above, while omitting the true will give you an object.

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