Member Avatar for Drugsxxx

Is it pasible to find all occurrences of strings "North" and "North-East" in some txt file and save number of occurrences in some variable??

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Dani AI

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Good instincts calling out the double-counting. As noted, subtracting one count from another only works when you know all possible variants up front. A safer fix is to count the actual value in the last column of each line, rather than searching substrings. That avoids false positives like "North-West" or "Cape North-East".

<?php
$counts = ['North' => 0, 'North-East' => 0];

$fh = new SplFileObject('text.txt');
$fh->setFlags(SplFileObject::DROP_NEW_LINE);
foreach ($fh as $line) {
    if (!is_string($line) || $line === '') continue;

    $pos = strrpos($line, ',');
    $dir = trim($pos === false ? $line : substr($line, $pos + 1));

    if (array_key_exists($dir, $counts)) {
        $counts[$dir]++;
    }
}

echo "North={$counts['North']}\n";
echo "North-East={$counts['North-East']}\n";

If you cannot rely on the file structure and really must search free text, use a pattern that prevents "North" inside "North-East" from matching. @diafol was on the right track with regex; just watch the common gotcha mentioned: \b inside [] is backspace, not a word boundary. This version is precise:

<?php
$text = file_get_contents('text.txt');

$northEast = preg_match_all('/\bNorth\-East\b/m', $text, $m1);
$northOnly = preg_match_all('/\bNorth\b(?!\-East)/m', $text, $m2);

echo "North={$northOnly}\n";
echo "North-East={$northEast}\n";

Tips:

  • Add the i flag if the file may contain lowercase variants.
  • Normalize odd dashes before matching (e.g., replace unusual hyphen-like characters with -).
  • For very large files, prefer the line-by-line approach to keep memory usage low.

Recommended Answers

All 17 Replies

Member Avatar for KamranArshad

kept thing simple

first get content of file through "file_get_contents"

like {$text = file_get_contents("./folder/file.txt", true);}

now you have array of file content in $text variable

now use {echo substr_count($my_text ,"North"); }

this will print number of occurrence of substring in file.

Hopefully this will work for you.

if yes please mark this as completed with positive remarks

thanks

Member Avatar for Drugsxxx

Thx for your answer kind sir.I must specify what i mean.

I have a .txt file and data in it looks like this:

12.10.2011 19.58,North
12.10.2011 20,00,North
12.10.2011 20.02,North
12.10.2011 2010,North-East

and i wish to chek the file for occurrences and write them in variable somthing like this:

$North = 3
$North-East = 1

Member Avatar for KamranArshad

Well i think you need complete code for this

$getText = file_get_contents("text.txt", true);
  $North = substr_count($getText ,"North");
  $North_East = substr_count($getText ,"North-East");
  
	echo "North =".  $North; 
	echo "<br>";
	echo "North_East =".  $North_East ;

This is working example same as you write txt file data

Member Avatar for pritaeas

Won't line 5 echo '4', instead of '3' ? (Don't think I'm nagging, just keeping you on your toes :) )

Member Avatar for Drugsxxx

Yes this is working fine for me. Thx for this.

But $North will have count north double - for "North" and for "North-East". What should i do for corect result. I mean #north count without "North-East" only "North"

Member Avatar for KamranArshad 
$getText = file_get_contents("text.txt", true);
$North = substr_count($getText ,"North");
  echo "North =".  $North;
Member Avatar for Drugsxxx

Yes yes this is corect but i was thinking about somthing else.

with your code:

$getText = file_get_contents("text.txt", true);
  $North = substr_count($getText ,"North");
  $North_East = substr_count($getText ,"North-East");
 
	echo "North =".  $North; 
	echo "<br>";
	echo "North_East =".  $North_East ;

and .txt file loking like this:

North
North
North
North-East
North-East
North-East

echos will give somthing lie this:
North =6 // and should be 3 but North-East have north string too how to do corect result??
North_East =3

Member Avatar for KamranArshad

Why don't you subtract "North-East" from "North" You get the total number

$getText = file_get_contents("text.txt", true);
$North = substr_count($getText ,"North");
$North_East = substr_count($getText ,"North-East");
$getNorth = $North - $North_East ;
echo "North =".  $getNorth; 
echo "<br>";
echo "North_East =".  $North_East ;
Member Avatar for Drugsxxx

Thank you kind sir:D everything work perfectly.

Member Avatar for KamranArshad

That's good, please mark this thread as solved, and if this is helpful please remark me positively
regards

Member Avatar for Member #120589

This may be a little unsafe. preg_match?

preg_match_all("/\bNorth[ |\b]/",$str,$matches);
echo count($matches);

preg_match_all("/\bNorth-East\b/",$str,$matches);
echo count($matches);

preg_match is a little slower than substr_count if think, but more versatile.

Member Avatar for pritaeas

@ardav: Are you sure that first one does it, because I think a - is also a \b

Edited by pritaeas because: n/a
Member Avatar for pritaeas

Why don't you subtract "North-East" from "North" You get the total number

That works in this particular case only, how about:

North
North-West
North Cape
Cape North-East
Cape North-West
Cape North

You never know what kind of data you are getting. Such assumptions are dangerous.

Edited by pritaeas because: n/a
Member Avatar for Member #120589 

$str = "North By North-East By North-East by North by South By North-East";

preg_match_all("/\bNorth[ |\b]/",$str,$matches);
print_r($matches[0]);

gives me 2 x North - so I assume it works.

It was a quick trial, so I'm sure a better pattern exists.

However, thinking about it, this?

$str = "North By North-East By North-East by North West by South By North-East";
preg_match_all("/(North[^-]|North-East|South[^-]|South-East|North-West|South-West|West|East)/",$str,$matches);
$arr = array_count_values($matches[0]);
print_r($arr);
Edited by Member #120589 because: n/a
Member Avatar for pritaeas

Agree on the latter.

In the first, the \b within the brackets means backspace, and the pipe does not mean 'or' (just the pipe char), so it matches 'North ' twice because of the space. Try it with North at the end of the string ;)

Edited by pritaeas because: n/a
commented: thanks for the explanation +14
Member Avatar for Member #120589

@P - thanks for the explanation - it looked all wrong - so decided on the array_count_values solution.

Member Avatar for Drugsxxx

Thanks for help. Thread is ready to be closed :D

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