Question

I’m trying to Search my orderid, This is my code so far:

<?php
$file = 'order.dat';
$searchfor = '177';

// the following line prevents the browser from parsing this as HTML.
header('Content-Type: text/plain');

// get the file contents, assuming the file to be readable (and exist)
$contents = file_get_contents($file);
// escape special characters in the query
$pattern = preg_quote($searchfor, '/');
// finalise the regular expression, matching the whole line
$pattern = "/^.*$pattern.*\$/m";
// search, and store all matching occurences in $matches
if(preg_match_all($pattern, $contents, $matches)){
   echo "Found matches:\n";
   echo implode("\n", $matches[0]);
}
else{
   echo "No matches found";
}

now for example my order.dat file contains the data

175|RC456456456|54156456465|109$

176|RC456456456|54156456465|177$

177|RC456456456|54156456465|129$

178|RC456456456|54156456465|129$

now when i searchfor 177 i have an result like this:-

Found matches:
176|RC456456456|54156456465|177$
177|RC456456456|54156456465|129$

But i want to search 177 for my 1st string only

I want my result like this, its only match my 1st string not on all 4 variables

177|RC456456456|54156456465|129$

Answer 1

Looks like you want to match only those string that begin with 177. If yes you can change your regex to:

$pattern = "/^$pattern.*$/m";