PHP split sentence to sections by array of values

Question

I am looking for the best way to do this... does some handy regex exist? Or I should play with it in cycle somehow section by section?

Okay I have such a sentence:

"The rooms rooms and rooms again were great, the food was not but the beds were extremely comfortable."

I have an array of items (delimeters):

 array('food','room','bed');

I would like to somehow magically obtain the sections of sentence between these words...like split it (from one delimeter to another) if it's understandable...

The first section:

"The"

The second section (until closest item from array (delimeter):

"rooms "

The third section:

"rooms and "

The fourth section:

"rooms again were great, the"

And the fifth section:

"food was not but the ".

And the fourth section:

"beds were extremely comfortable."

Basically split the sentence from one key word to another repeatedly.

The point of delimeters is to split the sentence... so just match it... if in sentence there is a word "rooms" it matches the delimeter "room". Plural is not important, the point is to split the sentence to multiple sections based on delimeters (items from array).

Any idea please?

If there were 3 or more, how would it be delimited? Right now, you have everything up to and including the first word, everything in between, and everything starting with the second word to the end. If there was a 3rd, would it match up to the start of it or the end of it? Please post an example of what would happen with 3 words. — Michael Berkowski, May 17 '14 at 14:53
What about s in "rooms" word? You have it in original sentence but doesn't have in example and in delimiters array — Marcin Nabiałek, May 17 '14 at 14:54
Michael and Marcin thank for your interested. Please I have updated my question. — Lukas Lukac, May 17 '14 at 14:58
There is still the problem I asked. Also we don't know if delimiters may occur in random other and what if there are multiple words that match delimiter — Marcin Nabiałek, May 17 '14 at 15:00
It seems that you don't have any idea what you want. Your edits completely changed what you wanted — Marcin Nabiałek, May 17 '14 at 15:13
That's not true. No need of -1... the Johnny understood the question very well it just need to be updated a little be. — Lukas Lukac, May 17 '14 at 15:15
Ok, you are right, but you should first think the question and show exactly what you want — Marcin Nabiałek, May 17 '14 at 15:19
That's true. I could post the question with all possibilities at the beginning. Will do it definitely next time — Lukas Lukac, May 17 '14 at 15:23

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:50

4

Could split using a lookahead:

$pattern = '/(?=room|food|bed)/i';

$str = "The rooms rooms and rooms again were great, the food was not but the beds were extremely comfortable.";

print_r(preg_split($pattern, $str));

output (test @ eval.in)

Array
(
    [0] => The 
    [1] => rooms 
    [2] => rooms and 
    [3] => rooms again were great, the 
    [4] => food was not but the 
    [5] => beds were extremely comfortable.
)

Used i (PCRE_CASELESS) modifier. Might want to add \b word-boundaries to some of the words.

Also see: test at regex101, regex faq

edited May 23 '17 at 11:50

Community

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answered May 17 '14 at 15:08

Jonny 5

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Seems like this is exactly what I needed will play with it a little be to be sure and then I will mark it as an answer. Thank you Johnny for now! – Lukas Lukac May 17 '14 at 15:18
@Trki Welcome! Also see [this example @ eval.in](https://eval.in/152454) with your array. If there are [regex metacharcters](http://www.hscripts.com/tutorials/regular-expression/metacharacter-list.php) contained in the words, need to [preg_quote](http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.preg-quote.php) the items. – Jonny 5 May 17 '14 at 15:46
1

Love zero-width splits, +1 :) – zx81 May 18 '14 at 03:16
@Jonny5 is there any way I could select the whole word? Example: $pattern = '/(?=room|food|bed)/i'; $string = "The bedrooms are great." Split -> [0] => the, [1] => bedrooms are great. ? – Lukas Lukac May 21 '14 at 07:54
@Trki Possibly want to add `\b` [word-boundaries](http://www.regular-expressions.info/wordboundaries.html) [before](http://regex101.com/r/xI1iN5) [and](http://regex101.com/r/fH2jY6)/or after. See [/(?=\b(?:room|bed|food))/i](http://regex101.com/r/xI1iN5) with a word-boundary before each of the words inside the `(?:` non-capturing [group](http://www.regular-expressions.info/brackets.html). Also of course you can add the boundaries to single words in the alternation, wherever: [/(?=room\b|\bbed|food)/i](http://regex101.com/r/uC1rM4). – Jonny 5 May 21 '14 at 09:05
1

Aaah I was using wrong syntax all the time that's why it wasn't working for me. Thx again! You are the best :) – Lukas Lukac May 21 '14 at 14:16

PHP split sentence to sections by array of values

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