Finding a substring within a PHP array?

Question

I have a PHP script that loops through each row of a CSV file and organizes each line into an array:

$counter = 0;
    $file = file($ReturnFile);
    foreach($file as $k){
        if(preg_match('/"/', $k)==1){
            $csv[] = explode(',', $k);
            $counter++;
         }
     }

    ...

    while($x<$counter){
        $line=$csv[$x];

This works; my question is about how to find a substring within each line. This:

    foreach($line as $value){
        if($value==$name_search){
            // action

works if the value of $line is exactly equal to the value of $name_search ($name_search is a person's last name). However, this doesn't work if there is a space or additional characters in the value of $line (for example: $line equal to "Wilson (ID: 345)" or "Wilson " won't match a $name_search value of "Wilson".

So far I've tried:

if(strpos($value, $res_name_search) !== false){

if(substr($value, 0, strrpos($value, ' '))==$res_name_search){

if(substr(strval($value), 0, strrpos(strval($value), ' '))==$res_name_search){

without success ... Do I have a syntax error and/or is there a better way to accomplish this?

I think the issue should be related to the Upper Case or Lower Case. Try lower case both strings. strpos() could work. — dquinonez
– dquinonez, Commented Apr 11, 2016 at 14:49

jackomelly · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-11 14:46:13Z

1

I think you have inverted the parameters. The following should work:

if (strpos($res_name_search, $value) !== false)

A minor note: use stripos for case-insensitive search.

answered Apr 11, 2016 at 14:46

jackomelly

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2 Comments

Eduardo Galván Over a year ago

No, the first parameter is the haystack ($line) and the second is the needle ($name_search), so @faalbane's order of the function arguments is correct

faalbane Over a year ago

tested; same issue

Foreign Worker · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-11 14:47:37Z

0

Try to use strpos like this: if (strpos($res_name_search, $value))

answered Apr 11, 2016 at 14:47

Foreign Worker

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1 Comment

faalbane Over a year ago

tested; same issue

Mangesh Sathe · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-11 14:51:56Z

0

use php TRIM function
Convert to either of the lowercase or uppercase before compairing
use var_dump to check the data type
instead of using var_dump type cast $value and $name_search to STRING
also check ===
Remove spaces (if required)
Use regular expression to remove (, ), :, -, ; etc...
and of course apply function strpos

You can apply above mentioned points in your logic (Order of points may be different)

answered Apr 11, 2016 at 14:51

Mangesh Sathe

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Comments

dquinonez · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-11 14:52:18Z

0

Try this:

$str = 'This is my test: wilson ';
$search = "wilson";

if(strpos(strtolower($str), strtolower($search)) !== false){
    echo 'found it';
}

answered Apr 11, 2016 at 14:52

dquinonez

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2 Comments

faalbane Over a year ago

tested; same issue

dquinonez Over a year ago

then should be something else in your code. If you test this code here. phptester.net will work. Try it!

Md Mahfuzur Rahman · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-11 15:01:24Z

0

You can also try this:

if (preg_match('/'.strtolower($res_name_search).'/', strtolower($value)))

edited Apr 11, 2016 at 15:01

answered Apr 11, 2016 at 14:48

Md Mahfuzur Rahman

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1 Comment

faalbane Over a year ago

tested; same issue

NaijaProgrammer · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-11 15:02:59Z

0

This is the sort of situations for which the built-in PHP function stristr exists. This function is the case-insensitive equivalent of the strstr function which, according to the docs:

Returns part of haystack string starting from and including the first occurrence of needle to the end of haystack.

Using this function, achieving such a task becomes as easy as:

foreach($line as $value){
    if( stristr($value, $name_search) !== FALSE){
        // substring was found in search string, perform your action

You can read more about it in the official documentation

I hope this helps.

edited Apr 11, 2016 at 15:02

answered Apr 11, 2016 at 14:58

NaijaProgrammer

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2 Comments

faalbane Over a year ago

tested; same issue

NaijaProgrammer Over a year ago

Ok, the confusion was coming from the way you used $value and $name_search. I've inverted the order of the two variables in my answer. That should fix your problem.

Halayem Anis · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-11 15:03:02Z

0

I advice you to use fgetcsv function, this will return you an array of your columns for each iteration as follow :

 while (($data = fgetcsv($handle, 1000, ",")) !== FALSE) {
 // ...
 }

If in your CSV file, the column NAME is in position 2 for example and you want to know if token exist, just use

if (strpos('Wilson', $data[2] !== FALSE) {
    // do your job
}

if you want to deal with case-insentivie, use stripos function

answered Apr 11, 2016 at 15:03

Halayem Anis

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