Help needed searching for a string within an array of strings...

Hi,

Given a string $txt and an array of strings $txt_array

what would be the best/fastest way to search in _insensitive_ case if $txt
is in $text_array and, if it is, where is it?
Because I want to use the array with an ID

Something like,

$text_array[1] = "Hello A";
$text_array[2 = "Hello B";
$text_array[9] = "Hello C";
$text_array[15] = "Hello D";

and

$text = "hello c";

I want to return that it was found in text_array and that the number is '9'.
Are there any 'special' characters I need to watch out for?

Could that be done?

Regards.

Sims

"Sims" wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Given a string $txt and an array of strings $txt_array
>
> what would be the best/fastest way to search in _insensitive_ case
if
> $txt
> is in $text_array and, if it is, where is it?
> Because I want to use the array with an ID
>
> Something like,
>
> $text_array[1] = "Hello A";
> $text_array[2 = "Hello B";
> $text_array[9] = "Hello C";
> $text_array[15] = "Hello D";
>
> and
>
> $text = "hello c";
>
> I want to return that it was found in text_array and that the
number
> is ’9’.
> Are there any ’special’ characters I need to watch out
> for?
>
> Could that be done?
>
> Regards.
>
> Sims

foreach ($text_array as $key => $value) {
if (stristr($text_array[$key], $text)) $ret_value = $key;
}

note: stristr in (PHP 3>= 3.0.6, PHP 4 , PHP 5)

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>
> foreach ($text_array as $key => $value) {
> if (stristr($text_array[$key], $text)) $ret_value = $key;
> }
>

Yes, of course I know that one
But is there not any other..., better, way?

Sims

.oO(Sims)

>> foreach ($text_array as $key => $value) {
>> if (stristr($text_array[$key], $text)) $ret_value = $key;
>> }
>
>Yes, of course I know that one
>But is there not any other..., better, way?

Not really. There are other ways, but I doubt they are better. The crux
is that you wanna search case-insensitive, this means there has to be a
call to a case-insensitive string comparing function somewhere. For
case-sensitive search you could use array_search(), but there's nothing
like array_isearch() yet.

I would simply put the above loop in a function array_isearch() (for
example) to have a fix API to use. Then you can play around with
different solutions without having to change the rest of the program.

Micha

"Michael Fesser" wrote:
> .oO(Sims)
>
> >> foreach ($text_array as $key => $value) {
> >> if (stristr($text_array[$key], $text)) $ret_value = $key;
> >> }
> >
> >Yes, of course I know that one
> >But is there not any other..., better, way?
>
> Not really. There are other ways, but I doubt they are better. The
> crux
> is that you wanna search case-insensitive, this means there has to
be
> a
> call to a case-insensitive string comparing function somewhere. For
> case-sensitive search you could use array_search(), but there’s
> nothing
> like array_isearch() yet.
>
> I would simply put the above loop in a function array_isearch()
(for
> example) to have a fix API to use. Then you can play around with
> different solutions without having to change the rest of the
program.
>
> Micha

I have never had any performance problem with php. Most problems
relate to db access. Do you really need to squeeze php that much?

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Sims wrote:
>>foreach ($text_array as $key => $value) {
>>if (stristr($text_array[$key], $text)) $ret_value = $key;
>>}
>
> Yes, of course I know that one
> But is there not any other..., better, way?

Yes, there is. I think array_walk will be faster and is in any case the
"correct" method.

greetings, Christian.

>
> Yes, there is. I think array_walk will be faster and is in any case the
> "correct" method.
>

Sorry but i don't think array_walk is the best method.
You cannot use it to find one string in an array, it's a callback function.

It will always loop thru all the items regardless if an item was found.
And storing the resuts is not the easiest/best way

> greetings, Christian.

regards.

Sims