extract data from textarea

**lmpb17** · December 28th, 2009, 03:55 PM

I have a text area form which takes data like this:

Code:

user1:pass1
user2:pass2
user3:pass3

The goal is to get this data into a mysql table whose fields are id, user, pw.

To split the lines I use:

Code:

$text = $_POST['text'];
$data = explode(explode("/\r\n|\r|\n/", $text); //split text area by line

Now I am not sure how to proceed. I need two separate arrays that will contain the user and pw values. I cant use explode like for this because it would separate them into a single array.

**Roguebfl** · December 28th, 2009, 06:15 PM

Code:

$text = $_POST['text'];
$users = array();
$pass = array();
$data = explode(explode("/\r\n|\r|\n/", $text); //split text area by line
foreach($data as $line)
{ list($users[], $pass[]) = explode(":", $line); }

**lmpb17** · December 28th, 2009, 08:46 PM

Something isnt right

Code:

<?
if($_POST){
	///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
	//connect to db
	$con = mysql_connect("localhost","user1","pass1") or die(mysql_error());
	mysql_select_db("myDB") or die(mysql_error());

	///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
	//Get accounts in user:pass format and sort
	$text = $_POST['text'];
	$users = array();
	$pass = array();
	$data = explode("/\r\n|\r|\n/", $text); //split text area by line
	foreach($data as $line)
		{ 
			list($users[], $pass[]) = explode(":", $line); 
		}
 	/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
	//Insert into database	
	foreach($users as $u => $val)
		{
		 $insert = "INSERT INTO accounts (email) VALUES ($u)";
		 mysql_query($insert);
		}
	
	foreach($pass as $p)
		{
			$insert = "INSERT INTO accounts (pw) VALUES ($p)";
			mysql_query($insert);
		}			
	//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////	
	mysql_close($con);
	echo "Data inserted <br>";
}
?>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] ?>" method="post">
	<textarea cols="50"	rows="20" name="text"></textarea>
    <br>
    <input type="submit" value="SUBMIT" />
</form>
</body>
</html>

**Roguebfl** · December 29th, 2009, 11:27 AM

Originally Posted by lmpb17

Something isnt right

you are goinging to need to be a more specific.

**lmpb17** · December 29th, 2009, 01:31 PM

Sorry I must have forgot to add the problem.

Nothing is being added to the database. I tried using this to see what was being passed:

Code:

foreach($users as $u)
		{
		 echo $u;
		}
	
foreach($pass as $p)
        	{
			echo $p;
		}

And out of the list below only the ones in red were printed

Code:

user1@email.com:pass1
user2@email.com:pass2
user3@email.com:pass3

**Roguebfl** · December 29th, 2009, 02:08 PM

My next test would be to echo out each $line, then $text itself just so I could be sure I'm dealing with the strings I think I'm dealing with.

**lmpb17** · December 30th, 2009, 12:08 PM

Did as you recommended and it looks like the issue is with the way the data from the text area is posted. It comes in with whitespace, not a newline. I have tried using explode with all the whitespace codes I could find but was not able to split the string:

Code:

$data = explode("/\s+|\n|\r\n|\t|x0B| |\0/", $text)

**PeejAvery** · December 30th, 2009, 01:44 PM

I think you are going about this wrong. Rather than using two different arrays, you should use one two dimensional array. Try the following code instead.

PHP Code:


<?php
if (isset($_POST['text'])) {
  // get rid of whitespace...also, since not all OS use \r
  // but everyone has \n in it, let's get rid of the \r
  $text = str_replace("\r", '', trim($_POST['text']));

  // now that you have your raw text
  // we need an array to store the data
  $data = array();

  // split line by line
  $lines = explode("\n", $text);
  foreach ($lines as $line) {
    // split the data by a colon
    $parts = explode(':', $line);

    // set all data into one two dimensional array
    $data[] = array('user' => $parts[0], 'pass' => $parts[1]);
  }

  echo '<pre>';
  print_r($data);
  echo '</pre>';
  exit;
}
?>
<html>
<body>

<form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] ?>" method="post">
  <textarea cols="50"  rows="20" name="text"></textarea><br />
  <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

</body>
</html>

That will give you the following results. Now you only have to iterate the $data array and not two separate arrays for inserting.

Code:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [user] => user1
            [pass] => pass1
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [user] => user2
            [pass] => pass2
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [user] => user3
            [pass] => pass3
        )

)

**lmpb17** · December 30th, 2009, 02:27 PM

That worked perfectly. Thank you.

**Box293** · August 5th, 2010, 07:29 AM

Thanks PeejAvery

I was able to use the same code for some csv data, I just swapped the : for a ,

Great stuff

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