Question

If I have a string that looks like this:

$myString = "[sometext][moretext][993][112]This is a long text";

I want it to be turned into:

$string = "This is a long text";
$arrayDigits[0] = 993;
$arrayDigits[1] = 112;
$arrayText[0] = "sometext";
$arrayText[1] = "moretext";

How can I do this with PHP?

I understand Regular Expressions is the solution. Please notice that $myString was just an example. There can be several brackets, not just two of each, as in my example.

Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

You could try something along the lines of:

<?php

function parseString($string) {
    // identify data in brackets
    static $pattern = '#(?:\[)([^\[\]]+)(?:\])#';
    // result container
    $t = array(
        'string' => null,
        'digits' => array(),
        'text' => array(),
    );

    $t['string'] = preg_replace_callback($pattern, function($m) use(&$t) {
        // shove matched string into digits/text groups
        $t[is_numeric($m[1]) ? 'digits' : 'text'][] = $m[1];
        // remove the brackets from the text
        return '';
    }, $string);

    return $t;
}

$string = "[sometext][moretext][993][112]This is a long text";
$result = parseString($string);
var_dump($result);

/*
    $result === array(
        "string" => "This is a long text",
        "digits" => array(
            993,
            112,
        ),
        "text" => array(
            "sometext",
            "moretext",
        ),
    );
*/

(PHP5.3 – using closures)