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I am trying to get a return value for the day that is matched by the preg_match() function against an associative array to return the selected weekday. The code excerpt is below:

$daysArray = array(
    "Monday" => "Mon", 
    "Tuesday" => "Tues", 
    "Wednesday" => "Wed", 
    "Thursday" => "Thurs", 
    "Friday" => "Fri", 
    "Saturday" => "Sat", 
    "Sunday" => "Sun"
    );
$weekdaysString = implode('|',$daysArray);

if (preg_match('/^\d{1,2}.\d{2}([ap])m\[(' . $weekdaysString . '|-).Only\]$/', $val)) {
    echo "Match was found <br />";
} else if (preg_match('/^\d{1,2}.\d{2}([ap])m\[(' . $weekdaysString . '|-)-(' . $weekdaysString . '|-).Only\]$/', $val)) {
    echo "Match was found 3<br />";
} else {
    echo 'Not found ';
}

$val is '8:55pm[Tues-Thurs Only]';

share|improve this question
    
As I can't see a question in your... post, I'd take a wild guess and suggest you using the third argument for preg_match –  Havelock Apr 23 at 8:47
    
@Havelock there are only two arguments, and it's the second one –  difyzz Apr 23 at 8:52
    
Since when is Except in your Pattern? Your regex doesn't match that. stackoverflow.com/questions/23221936/… –  Andresch Serj Apr 23 at 8:58
    
@AndreschSerj edited –  difyzz Apr 23 at 9:01

3 Answers 3

up vote 0 down vote accepted

This code gives the last day name. This means that if $val contains only one day, this day will be displayed. You can easily change this behavior to get only a result when $val contains two days by removing the ?. If you want to deal with more days, replace ? with *.

I think it is more useful to flip the associative array, to get the day name at the end and to use array_keys to build the day subpattern ($dayPat). 

$val = '8:55pm[Tues-Thurs Only]';

$daysCorr = array(
    'Mon'   => 'Monday',
    'Tues'  => 'Tuesday',
    'Wed'   => 'Wednesday',
    'Thurs' => 'Thursday',
    'Fri'   => 'Friday',
    'Sat'   => 'Saturday',
    'Sun'   => 'Sunday');

$dayPat = implode('|', array_keys($daysCorr));

$pattern = <<<EOD
~
^
  \d{1,2} : \d{2} [ap]m
  \[
  (?:
      (?: $dayPat )     # first day  
      (?: - | [ ]&[ ] ) # day delimiter
  )?                    # ? makes the first day optional, remove it if not needed
  (?<day> $dayPat )
  [ ]                   # Since the x modifier is used (free space mode),
                        # you must use [ ] to write a literal space 
  Only ]
\z                      # end of the string
~x
EOD;

if (preg_match($pattern, $val, $match))
    echo $daysCorr[$match['day']];
share|improve this answer
    
how do I return the time part of the code? That is, the \d{1,2} : \d{2} [ap]m part –  difyzz Apr 24 at 8:29
up vote 0 down vote

Php has functions for that : 

echo "Tomorrow is ".date("l", mktime(0, 0, 0, 4, 24, 2014)); 
//=> Tomorrow is Thursday

If what you want is to check if a string contains a weekday you can do this :

$daysArray = array(
    "Monday" => "Mon", 
    "Tuesday" => "Tues", 
    "Wednesday" => "Wed", 
    "Thursday" => "Thurs", 
    "Friday" => "Fri", 
    "Saturday" => "Sat", 
    "Sunday" => "Sun"
    );

$val = "The sun is warm!";

foreach($daysArray as $fullDay => $shortDay){
   if(strpos(strtolower($val), strtolower($shortDay)){
       echo "match on $fullDay!";
   }
}
share|improve this answer
    
the variable $weekdays is an array of weekdays that is checked by preg_match for a match int he pattern that it is included in. I want it to return the day that it matched. For example, if in the array of weekdays, the pattern matched 'Wed', I want it to return Wednesday. –  difyzz Apr 23 at 8:58
    
I think I get it, I've edited my answer. –  Loïc Apr 23 at 9:06
up vote 0 down vote

If you'd take the time to read the documentation on preg_match and preg_match_all you'll find that it is able to find matches and not only returns a boolean value.

Using this new knowledge, you can use the matches to find your weekdays in the string you evaluated.

Try this:

$matches = array();
if (preg_match_all('/^\d{1,2}.\d{2}([ap])m\[(' . $weekdaysString . '|-).Only\]$/', $val, $matches)) {
    echo "Match was found <br />";
    // check the array $matches here
} //...
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