PHP Remove string from larger string with variables

Question

I am having a bit of trouble removing a part of a string inside a text file with php.

I have a big file and i need to remove part of a line of this file.

The thing is the line is not always the same. It keeps the format but the numbers change. Here is an example:

< /td >This is the line< /td >and this< /td >is < /td >the < /td >part< /td >want to remove< /td >Name< /td > after it keeps going < /td > a loong way < /td >

I would like to remove from the < /td > after the word this until the < /td > after Name.

I was wondering if there is anyway of makin php delete backwards from name until the X number occurence from < /td >, something like:

Delete from Name until the 4th appearance of < /td >

Hope someone can help me....

Both answers below do the trick for the text but they dont work for my real code. So here is part of the real code:

... < /td >< /tr >< tr >< td onmouseover="dm.v(this,1);" onmouseout="dm.u(this);" id="mnFE0BBC45_i8" onclick="dm.ItClk(this,\'\');cmn.href(\'indexall.php\',\'\');" class="mn31BBMainMenuItemTD" >< table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" >< tr >< td class="mn31BBIconTD" > < font class="MG_Icons" > &#xe 746;< /font >< /td >< td class="mn31BBTitleTD" id="mnFE0BBC45_i8-tl" >Other_Name< /td >< td class="mn31BBArrowTD" > < /td >< /tr >< /table >< /td >< /tr >< tr >< td onmouseover="dm.v(this,1);" onmouseout="dm.u(this);" id="mnFE0BBC45_i3" onclick="dm.ItClk(this,\'\');cmn.href(\'index.php\',\'\');" class="mn31BBMainMenuItemTD" >< table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" >< tr >< td class="mn31BBIconTD" >< font class="MG_Icons" >&#xe 746;< /font >< /td >< td class="mn31BBTitleTD" id="mnFE0BBC45_i3-tl" >Name< /td > class="mn31BBArrowTD" < /td > /tr /table < /td >< /tr >< tr >< onmouseover="dm.v(th is,1);" onmouseout="dm.u(th is) ;" id="mnFE0B BC45_i5" oncli ck="dm.ItC lk(t his,\'\');cmn.h ref(\'indexd2.php\',\'\');" class...

This is only a little part of the code (is a Javascript Menu), there are spaces in all the tags (< tr >) to be able to see them....

The text i want to delete is:

< /td >< td class="mn31BBArrowTD" > < /td >< /tr >< /table >< /td >< /tr >< tr >< td onmouseover="dm.v(this,1);" onmouseout="dm.u(this);" id="mnFE0BBC45_i3" onclick="dm.ItClk(this,\'\');cmn.href(\'index.php\',\'\');" class="mn31BBMainMenuItemTD" >< table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" >< tr >< td class="mn31BBIconTD" >< font class="MG_Icons" >&#xe 746;< /font >< /td >< td class="mn31BBTitleTD" id="mnFE0BBC45_i3-tl" >Name

Both mnFE0BBC45_i3-tl and mnFE0BBC45_i3 are not always the same, the number changes depending of the Name.

That is way i want to do: Delete all from Name to the 4th appearence of < /td >

The code above is invalid HTML (<td> needs an opening and closing tag). Is this intentional? — rwacarter, Jan 20 at 10:22
Is that 'Name' word will be there in every text file. and also how long is the text — zan, Jan 20 at 10:23
it is intentional... it is only an example... in the real file each < /td > has its corresponding < td > — Ebarriosjr, Jan 20 at 10:24
The length of the text varies depending on the name of the variables that are in the middle... That is why i want to delete the text base in the occurence of the word < /td > — Ebarriosjr, Jan 20 at 10:25

nlu · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-21 15:08:19Z

Misread the requirement first; here is a corrected version that looks for the appropriate matches before "Name".

Between the other occurences of "<\td>" I am only looking for alphanumeric characters and spaces. It may be necessary to add more to this character class, like dash or underline ([[:alnum:]\ ]+)

<?php
$txt = '< /td >This is the line< /td >and this< /td >is the part< /td >want to remove< /td >Name< /td > after it keeps going < /td > a loong way < /td >';

$replacement = preg_replace('/([[:alnum:]\ ]+<\s*\/td\s*>){2,2}Name<\s*\/td\s*>/', '', $txt);
echo "$replacement \n";
?>

Output:

< /td >This is the line< /td >and this< /td > after it keeps going < /td > a loong way < /td >

Edit:

Here is a little Perl script that does what you want:

#!/usr/bin/perl
#

use strict;
use warnings;

open(my $fh, "<", "input.txt")
                   or die "cannot open < input.txt: $!";
my $content = do { local $/ = <$fh> };
close($fh);

my $anchor = ">Name<";
my $position = 0;
# find occurences of anchor in the text
while ( $position = index($content, $anchor, $position) ) {
    if ($position == -1) {
        last;
    }
    print "anchor $anchor is at $position \n";
    # go backwards to the starttag of the anchor (has to be a td element)
    my $starttag_position = rindex($content, "< td", $position);
    print "starttag of anchor is at $starttag_position \n";
    my $start = $starttag_position;
    # look backwards to closing tds
    for (my $i = 0; $i < 4; $i++) {
        $start = rindex($content, "< /td >", $start - 1);
        if ($start == -1) {
            die("less than 3 tds found before $anchor");
        }
    }
    print "first td is at $start \n";
    # delete the text in between
    substr($content, $start, $starttag_position - $start, "");
}

open(my $fout, ">", "input.new")
                   or die "cannot open > input.new: $!";
print $fout $content;
close $fout;

Can you maybe try with the new code i wrote in the question? I am not able to make it work.... — Ebarriosjr, Jan 21 at 8:33
Okay, that's a different story. Could you post more examples of what you want to delete? Otherwise there might be many more such trials. — nlu, Jan 21 at 10:04
This is the command i use to create the part of the line: < td class="mn31BBArrowTD" > < /td >< /tr >< /table >< /td >< /tr >< tr >< td onmouseover="dm.v(this,1);" onmouseout="dm.u(this);" id="mnFE0BBC45_i'.$num.'" onclick="dm.ItClk(this,'.$e.''.$e.');cmn.href('.$e.'index'.$name.'.php'.$e.','.$‌e.''.$e.');" class="mn31BBMainMenuItemTD" >< table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" >< tr >< td class="mn31BBIconTD" >< font class="MG_Icons" >< /font >< /td >< td class="mn31BBTitleTD" id="mnFE0BBC45_i'.$num.'-tl" >'.$name.'< /td > The variabl $name is known to me but the $num not — Ebarriosjr, Jan 21 at 10:29

zan · Answer 2 · 2015-01-20 11:46:35Z

Try this:

Algo: 1) first postion of name; 2) find postion of 3rd td from last 3) then truncate or make substring from that two postion.

$text_string= '< /td >This is the line< /td >and this< /td >is the part< /td >want to remove< /td >Name< /td > after it keeps going < /td > a loong way < /td >';
$textLength = strlen($text_string);
$first_pos= strpos($text_string,'Name');
$third_occurance = strrpos($text_string, '< /td >', $first_pos- strlen($text_string) - 3);
$result = substr_replace($text_string, ' ', $third_occurance /2, $textLength-$third_occurance );
var_DUMP($result);

Output:

string(78) "< /td >This is the line< /td >and this keeps going < /td > a loong way < /td >"

Can you maybe try with the new code i wrote in the question? I am not able to make it work.... — Ebarriosjr, Jan 21 at 8:33

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