Question

The following is a code block that’s working fine as regards getting the data I want.
Don’t laugh, it’s probably inefficient, but I’m learning 🙂
What I want, is to use the $totalLength variable, to stop gathering data when the $totalLength is, say 1500 bytes/characters (ideally, ending on a full word, but I’m not looking for miracles!). Anyway, the code:

$paraLength = 0;
$totalLength = 0;
for ($k = 0; $k < $descriptionValue->length; $k++) {        //define integer k as 0, get every description using ($k = 0; $k < $descriptionValue->length; $k++), increment the k loop (to get only 14 elements, use ($k <= 13))
$totalLength = $totalLength + $paraLength;
echo $totalLength." Total<br />";
$descNode = $descriptionValue->item($k)->nodeValue;       //find each description element
$descNode = trim($descNode);        //trim any whitespace around the element
$descPara = strip_tags($descNode);        //remove any HTML tags from the elements
$paraLength = (strlen($descPara));        //find the length of each element
//if (preg_match('/^([0-9 ]+)$/', $descPara)) {       //if element starts with numbers followed by a space, define it as a telephone number
//    $number = $descPara;
//    fwrite ($fh, "\t\t".'<div id="tel">'.$number."</div>\n");        //write a div with id tel, containing the number                                                                      
//}
//else
if (preg_match('/[A-Z]{4,}/', $descPara)) {        //if element starts with at least 4 uppercase characters, define it as a heading
    $heading = $descPara;
    $heading=ucfirst(strtolower($heading));       //convert the uppercase string to proper    
    fwrite ($fh, "\t\t".'<div id="heading"><h4>'.$heading."</h4></div>\n");        //write a div with id heading, containing the heading in h4 tags                                                                     
}
else if (preg_match('/\d*\.\d{1,}[m x]/', $descPara)) {       //if the element contains any number of digits followed by a dot, at least one further digit and the letters m x, define it as a heading based on it containing room measurements (this pattern matches at least two number after the dot \d*{2,}}
    $room = $descPara;
    fwrite ($fh, "\t\t".'<div id="roomheading"><h4>'.$room."</h4></div>\n");       //write a div with id roomheading, containing the heading in h4 tags
}
else if (preg_match('/^Disclaimer/i', $descPara)) {        //if the element contains the word Disclaimer, define it as such
    $disclaimer = $descPara;
    fwrite ($fh, "\t\t".'<div id="disclaimer"><h4>'.$disclaimer."</h4></div>\n");        //write a div with id disclaimer, containing the heading in h4 tags
}
else if (strlen($paraLength<14 && $paraLength>3)) {       //when all else fails, if the element is less than 14 but more than 3 characters, also define it as a heading
    $other = $descPara;
    fwrite ($fh, "\t\t".'<div id="other"><h4>'.$other."</h4></div>\n");        //write a div with id other and the heading in h4 tags
}
else {
fwrite ($fh, "\t\t\t<p>".$descPara."</p>\n");       //anything else is considered content, so write it out inside p tags
}
}

$totalLength counts nicely, but when I tried to put a while statement in there, it just hung. I tried putting the while statement before and after the for, but no joy. What am I doing wrong and how best to solve this one?

FYI $descriptionValue, is data parsed from HTML using DOM & xpath, the while I tried was while($totalLength <= 1500)

Answer 1

Maybe this is what You want:

if ($totalLength > 1500) {
    break;
}