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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Parse apart strings of comma separated data with varying number of fields Post 302235619 by 2reperry on Friday 12th of September 2008 09:39:36 AM
Old 09-12-2008
Parse apart strings of comma separated data with varying number of fields

I have a situation where I am reading a text file line-by-line. Those lines of data contain comma separated fields of data. However, each line can vary in the number of fields it can contain. What I need to do is parse apart each line and write each field of data found (left to right) into a file.

Example Lines of data
---------------------
abc,123,def,456,ghi,789
123,def,456
def,456,ghi,789,jkl
abc
def,456,ghi,789

After the first read the variable $LINE would equal "abc,123,def,456,ghi,789".
Then the fields of data should be parsed and written to FILE.TXT and should look like this :
abc
123
def
456
ghi
789

The second line is read and the variable $LINE would equal "123,def,456" and it's fields of data would be parsed and written to FILE.TXT and would look like so :
123
def
456

and so on for the remaining lines that are read into $LINE.

I have no problems with reading in the lines of data and placing each line into the $LINE variable. I need assistance with how to parse apart each line as it's read into $LINE and writing the fields to a file one-by-one from left to right. I'm pretty sure awk would probably be the best method but I'm open to suggestions on any more efficient methods/commands.

Can anyone help?
 

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MSGFMT_GET_PATTERN(3)							 1						     MSGFMT_GET_PATTERN(3)

MessageFormatter::getPattern - Get the pattern used by the formatter

	Object oriented style

SYNOPSIS
public string MessageFormatter::getPattern (void ) DESCRIPTION
Procedural style string msgfmt_get_pattern (MessageFormatter $fmt) Get the pattern used by the formatter PARAMETERS
o $fmt - The message formatter RETURN VALUES
The pattern string for this message formatter EXAMPLES
Example #1 msgfmt_get_pattern(3) example <?php $fmt = msgfmt_create( "en_US", "{0, number} monkeys on {1, number} trees" ); echo "Default pattern: '" . msgfmt_get_pattern( $fmt ) . "' "; echo "Formatting result: " . msgfmt_format( $fmt, array(123, 456) ) . " "; msgfmt_set_pattern( $fmt, "{0, number} trees hosting {1, number} monkeys" ); echo "New pattern: '" . msgfmt_get_pattern( $fmt ) . "' "; echo "Formatted number: " . msgfmt_format( $fmt, array(123, 456) ) . " "; ?> Example #2 OO example <?php $fmt = new MessageFormatter( "en_US", "{0, number} monkeys on {1, number} trees" ); echo "Default pattern: '" . $fmt->getPattern() . "' "; echo "Formatting result: " . $fmt->format(array(123, 456)) . " "; $fmt->setPattern("{0, number} trees hosting {1, number} monkeys" ); echo "New pattern: '" . $fmt->getPattern() . "' "; echo "Formatted number: " . $fmt->format(array(123, 456)) . " "; ?> The above example will output: Default pattern: '{0,number} monkeys on {1,number} trees' Formatting result: 123 monkeys on 456 trees New pattern: '{0,number} trees hosting {1,number} monkeys' Formatted number: 123 trees hosting 456 monkeys SEE ALSO
msgfmt_create(3), msgfmt_set_pattern(3). PHP Documentation Group MSGFMT_GET_PATTERN(3)
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