Regex的替代方法，用于从字符串中提取信息

I'm attempt to extract information from a string, which will always be in the same format.

The format will always be:

To:
                     Name here
Date:
                     26/08/2014 14:52
Order Number:
                     123456
Service Required:
                     Plumbing
Service Response:
                     48 Hour
Service Limit:
                     110.00

123 TEST ROAD
LEEDS
LS1 1HL

Contact:
                     Mr J Smith - 0777 123456
Telephone:
                     01921 123456

Work Details:

Notes here etc 

I have tried exploding the string by spaces and looping through the array but I cannot structure it in such a way that I receive the information.

E.g: I try to retrieve "Name here" from after "To:" without also retrieving "Date: etc..", the eventual idea is to create variables for each bit of information so i can enter it into a database.

Any help/suggestions/idea's are really welcome.

thanks for reading

You could use regex easily.

If you use this regex, you can get the name here:

To:\s+(.*)

Working demo

The idea of this regex is to look for the key you want to look for and fetch the value. For instance, above regex looks for To: whitespaces and store in a capturing group the content.

You just need to change To for whatever you want, if you modify it to Date you will get the date.

As a note, this only works with single line values.

The code to implement this regex in php is very straightforward, like this:

$re = "/To:\\s+(.*)/";
$str = "YOUR STRING HERE";
preg_match($re, $str, $matches);

On the other hand, below data follows a different pattern:

123 TEST ROAD
LEEDS
LS1 1HL

You'd need a different regex pattern too, so to fetch that information you could use:

^(\w+[\w\s]+)(?!:)$

Working demo

Later update (the work done)

Here's the fully working script. I guess you'll appreciate here how flexible it is!

$s = "To:
          Name here
Date:
          26/08/2014 14:52
Order Number:
          123456
Service Required:
          Plumbing
Service Response:
          48 Hour
Service Limit:
          110.00

123 TEST ROAD
LEEDS
LS1 1HL

Contact:
          Mr J Smith - 0777 123456
Telephone:
          01921 123456

Work Details:

Notes here etc ";


$a = Array(
  Array("To:", "Date:" ),
  Array("Date:", "Order Number:" ),
  Array("Order Number:", "Service Required:" ),
  Array("Service Limit:", 'Contact:' ),
  //etc
);  

foreach ($a as $anchors)  {
  $t = explode ($anchors[0], " ".$s );
  $t = explode ($anchors[1], $t[1]  );
  $r = trim($t[0]);
  echo $anchors[0] ." [". $r ."]
"  ;
}

Which will produce:

augusto@cubo:~/Documents$ php script.php
To: [Name here]
Date: [26/08/2014 14:52]
Order Number: [123456]
Service Limit: [110.00

123 TEST ROAD
LEEDS
LS1 1HL]

Older answer (the concept) Seems to be not too difficilt.

You have many good anchors to work on! explode() will be a good friend.

$tmp = explode ('anchor-before', $string  );
$tmp = explode ('anchor-after', $tmp[1]) ;
$res = trim($tmp[0]);

If you don't want to use a regex, since you are looking for the first field content, you can use a double explode:

$firstfield= trim(explode("
",explode(':', $data, 3)[1])[1]);

var_dump($firstfield);

Otherwise to obtain fields and values with a regex, you can use this:

$pattern = '~^(\w+(?: \w+)*):\s*(.+?)\s*(?=(?1):|\z)~ms';

preg_match_all($pattern, $data, $m, PREG_SET_ORDER);

foreach ($m as $v) {
    $results[$v[1]] = $v[2];
}

echo $results['To'];

A regex is not that difficult. Try this one.

 # '~(?msi)^To:\s*(.*?)\s*^Date:\s*(.*?)\s*^Order\ Number:\s*(.*?)\s*^Service\ Required:\s*(.*?)\s*^Service\ Response:\s*(.*?)\s*^Service\ Limit:\s*(.*?)\s*^Contact:\s*(.*?)\s*^Telephone:\s*(.*?)\s*^Work\ Details:\s*(.*?)\s*~'

 (?msi)
 ^ To: \s* 
 ( .*? )                            # (1)
 \s* 
 ^ Date: \s* 
 ( .*? )                            # (2)
 \s* 
 ^ Order\ Number: \s* 
 ( .*? )                            # (3)
 \s* 
 ^ Service\ Required: \s* 
 ( .*? )                            # (4)
 \s* 
 ^ Service\ Response: \s* 
 ( .*? )                            # (5)
 \s* 
 ^ Service\ Limit: \s* 
 ( .*? )                            # (6)
 \s* 
 ^ Contact: \s* 
 ( .*? )                            # (7)
 \s* 
 ^ Telephone: \s* 
 ( .*? )                            # (8)
 \s* 
 ^ Work\ Details: \s* 
 ( .*? )                            # (9)
 \s* 

Output

 **  Grp 1 -  ( pos 26 , len 9 ) 
Name here  
 **  Grp 2 -  ( pos 65 , len 16 ) 
26/08/2014 14:52  
 **  Grp 3 -  ( pos 119 , len 6 ) 
123456  
 **  Grp 4 -  ( pos 167 , len 8 ) 
Plumbing  
 **  Grp 5 -  ( pos 217 , len 7 ) 
48 Hour  
 **  Grp 6 -  ( pos 263 , len 39 ) 
110.00

123 TEST ROAD
LEEDS
LS1 1HL  
 **  Grp 7 -  ( pos 337 , len 24 ) 
Mr J Smith - 0777 123456  
 **  Grp 8 -  ( pos 396 , len 12 ) 
01921 123456  
 **  Grp 9 -  ( pos 427 , len 0 )  EMPTY