Regex to parse line with and capture string and comma separated number

Question

I am trying to parse a file with lines similar to:

       John David James (DEM) .  .  .  .  .  .     7,808   10.51
       Marvin D. Scott (DEM)  .  .  .  .  .  .     6,548    9.55
       Maria "Mary" Williams (DEM)  .  .  .  .     4,551    8.58
       Dwayne R. Johnson.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     4,322    8.22
       WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       188     .29

I need to capture the name and the number in the first column. The end result would be

John David James (DEM),7808
Marvin D. Scott (DEM),6548
Maria "Mary" Williams (DEM),4551
Dwayne R. Johnson,4322
WRITE-IN,188

I've tried

\s*\b(.*)\b(\s*\.\s*.*)(\d+,\d+|\d+)\b
\s*\b(.*)\b(\.|.\s)+\b(\d+,\d+|\d+)\b

Any suggestions?

@SalmanA yes. They use periods and spaces to separate the names from the numbers — sho
– sho, Commented Nov 9, 2018 at 21:27
@SalmanA the length of the name varies and the value could be 1 - 5 digits. — sho
– sho, Commented Nov 9, 2018 at 21:32

Andreas · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-09 22:04:44Z

1

This pattern captures the name by finding the dot sequence after the name.
Then captures a number and comma pattern as the number.

Then I loop to build the new array and replace comma with nothing.

$str = '       John David James (DEM) .  .  .  .  .  .     7,808   10.51
       Marvin D. Scott (DEM)  .  .  .  .  .  .     6,548    9.55
       Maria "Mary" Williams (DEM)  .  .  .  .     4,551    8.58
       Dwayne R. Johnson.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     4,322    8.22
       WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       188     .29';
preg_match_all("/\s*(.*?)\s*\.  \..*?([\d,]+)/", $str, $matches);

foreach($matches[1] as $key => $name){
    $new[] = $name . "," . str_replace(",", "", $matches[2][$key]);
}


var_dump($new);

Output:

array(5) {
  [0]=>
  string(27) "John David James (DEM),7808"
  [1]=>
  string(26) "Marvin D. Scott (DEM),6548"
  [2]=>
  string(32) "Maria "Mary" Williams (DEM),4551"
  [3]=>
  string(22) "Dwayne R. Johnson,4322"
  [4]=>
  string(12) "WRITE-IN,188"
}

https://3v4l.org/SdqoZ

answered Nov 9, 2018 at 22:04

Andreas

24k7 gold badges34 silver badges75 bronze badges

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

1 Comment

sho Over a year ago

Thanks @Andreas. This works great. This version actually simplifies my work even more since I can work with the name and count separately.

Amessihel · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-09 23:15:23Z

1

You can achieve it with an UNGREEDY regexp.

Here, when we catch the name, we want "a sequence of any character followed by a sequence of dots and spaces". So here is the equivalent regexp: (.+)[. ]*.

But the engine is set in greedy mode default. What will happen? The first part (.+) won't stop at the first dot or the first space encountered. Why? Because it is possible to perform the whole regular expression to the end of the line, and the engine will take this path as it is in greedy mode.

Same goes with the whole regexp you can see in the working code below. The first capturing group will capture beyond the name field.

We need to tell him to "eat" the less matchable part.

<?php
$lines = '
       John David James (DEM) .  .  .  .  .  .     7,808   10.51
       Marvin D. Scott (DEM)  .  .  .  .  .  .     6,548    9.55
       Maria "Mary" Williams (DEM)  .  .  .  .     4,551    8.58
       Dwayne R. Johnson.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     4,322    8.22
       WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       188     .29
';
$lines = explode("\n", $lines);

// Here, the U flag sets the ungreedy mode
$pattern = '/^\s*(\S.+\S)[. ]+([0-9]+)(?:,([0-9]+))?\s.*$/U';
echo "<pre>";
foreach ($lines  as $line) {
    // Here : - ${1} will capture the name,
    //        - ${2} the integer part of the number
    //        - ${3} the decimal part
    echo preg_replace($pattern, '${1},${2}${3}', $line) . "\n";
}
echo "</pre>";
?>

Result:

John David James (DEM),7808
Marvin D. Scott (DEM),6548
Maria "Mary" Williams (DEM),4551
Dwayne R. Johnson,4322
WRITE-IN,188

edited Nov 9, 2018 at 23:15

answered Nov 9, 2018 at 21:54

Amessihel

6,6363 gold badges25 silver badges52 bronze badges

5 Comments

Andreas Over a year ago

Split()? From manual: This function was DEPRECATED in PHP 5.3.0, and REMOVED in PHP 7.0.0.. Just to be clear, I did not downvote. I just wrote this as why use a deprecated function.

Amessihel Over a year ago

Yes, I saw your comment and I fixed my code. I was busy adding more explanations. Thanks.

Andreas Over a year ago

Just another heads up, OP does not want the comma in the number.

sho Over a year ago

Thanks for the extremely detailed description!

sho Over a year ago

Thanks Amessihel. Your response was great but I picked @Andreas version since the code he provided gave me the name and count as variables that I could work with individually. I converted the names and numbers into a json array to use elsewhere.

Salman Arshad · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-09 23:45:48Z

1

If the data is column aligned (all columns have known, fixed width) then use string functions such as substr:

<?php
$lines = '
       John David James (DEM) .  .  .  .  .  .     7,808   10.51
       Marvin D. Scott (DEM)  .  .  .  .  .  .     6,548    9.55
       Maria "Mary" Williams (DEM)  .  .  .  .     4,551    8.58
       Dwayne R. Johnson.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     4,322    8.22
       WRITE-IN.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       188     .29
';

foreach(preg_split('/(\\r|\\n)+/', $lines) as $line) {
    if ($line === '') continue;
    $name = substr($line, 0, 46);
    $amount = substr($line, 46, 10);
    $name = rtrim(ltrim($name), " .");
    $amount = (float) str_replace(",", "", $amount);
    echo $name . ", " . $amount;
}

edited Nov 9, 2018 at 23:45

answered Nov 9, 2018 at 21:36

Salman Arshad

274k85 gold badges450 silver badges540 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Regex to parse line with and capture string and comma separated number

3 Answers 3

1 Comment

5 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

1 Comment

5 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related