PHP - Parse out characters from string

Question

I'm working with some strings that appear in the following formats:

 $string = 'Acme Building Company - BZ-INTERNAL 1';
 $string = 'Acme Building Company - TRP-SHOP-1';
 $string = 'Acme Building Company - ZJG-INTERNAL 2';

I now need to get to the characters in the middle of these strings and parse them out, so in the above examples I would end up with the following:

  BZ
  TRP
  ZJG

I'm looking for the most dynamic approach so I don't have to hardcode any substitution strings but haven't been able to come up with anything so far.

Will the start of the string always be the same length ? In this case Acme Building Company - — Daniel_ZA
– Daniel_ZA, Commented Apr 12, 2017 at 5:31
preg_match('~-(.*?)-~', $string, $output);echo $output[1]; — Saty
– Saty, Commented Apr 12, 2017 at 5:36

Shakti Phartiyal · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-12 05:32:43Z

2

Use explode(); PHP function like so:

<?php
$string = 'Acme Building Company - BZ-INTERNAL 1';
$tmp = explode('-', $string);
$middle = trim($tmp[1]);
echo $middle;

The output of the above code segment will be: BZ

The syntax goes explode(DELIMITER, THE_STRING); Which returns an array.

So when we explode the given string BZ cones in the array index 1. You can use the same approach for all your strings, maybe in a loop.

answered Apr 12, 2017 at 5:32

Shakti Phartiyal

6,3043 gold badges29 silver badges46 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Jason Joslin · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-12 05:35:46Z

0

Im keen to wait and see how other people would approach this question. But if you can guarantee the string will always be formatted the way you have shown I would personally try:

$exploded = explode('-', $string);
$intials = trim($exploded[1]);

answered Apr 12, 2017 at 5:35

Jason Joslin

1,1448 silver badges23 bronze badges

Comments

Jonathan · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-12 05:37:09Z

0

Using a regular expression will do this quite nicely.

$match = null;
if (preg_match('/- (.*?)-/', $string, $matches)) {
    $match = $matches[1];
}

answered Apr 12, 2017 at 5:37

Jonathan

2,87515 silver badges23 bronze badges

Comments

Navneet Singh Chouhan · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-12 05:47:52Z

0

<?php preg_match("/(.*)-(.*)-(.*)/", $input_line, $output_array); echo trim($output_array[2]);?>

or

<?php preg_match("/(.*) - (.*)-(.*)/", $input_line, $output_array); echo $output_array[2];?>

edited Apr 12, 2017 at 5:47

answered Apr 12, 2017 at 5:38

Navneet Singh Chouhan

422 bronze badges

Comments

mickmackusa · Accepted Answer · 2022-07-16 14:24:42Z

0

The second call to strtok() can isolate the desired substring.

Notice that the character mask on the second call includes a space so that the following value is effectively left trimmed.

Code: (Demo)

$string = 'Acme Building Company - BZ-INTERNAL 1';

strtok($string, '-');
var_export(strtok('- '));
// 'BZ'

answered Jul 16, 2022 at 14:24

mickmackusa♦

49.2k13 gold badges98 silver badges165 bronze badges

Comments

lazyCoder · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-12 05:36:39Z

-1

@user982124 if your string format will be the same so yes you can explode() it and at the 1th index you will get your characters like:

<?php
 $string1 = 'Acme Building Company - BZ-INTERNAL 1';
 $string2 = 'Acme Building Company - TRP-SHOP-1';
 $string3 = 'Acme Building Company - ZJG-INTERNAL 2';

 $strArr1 = explode("-", $string1);
 echo trim($strArr1[1])."<br>";

 $strArr2 = explode("-", $string2);
 echo trim($strArr2[1])."<br>";

 $strArr3 = explode("-", $string3);
 echo trim($strArr3[1])."<br>";

answered Apr 12, 2017 at 5:36

lazyCoder

2,5513 gold badges25 silver badges44 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

PHP - Parse out characters from string

6 Answers 6

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

6 Answers 6

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related