Question

Find if portion of string exists in another string?

Asked by: TunaMaxx

Sorry if the title is confusing... I can't quite figure out how to word what I am trying to do...

I have written a script that checks a network share to see if a file exists. If it does, the script uses the pre-processed file. If not, file is processed on the spot. It works well except for a recent developement. Here is a brief example of what is going on:

 An unrelated piece of software converts files of one type (file 'A') into files of another (file 'B'). Then the original file ('A') gets treated again by a secondary process (file 'C') which sits and waits for the PHP script to come deal with it. File 'A' is then thrown out, leaving only Files 'B' and 'C' behind.   Everything works well as long as the only thing that changes over the various files is their extension (.eps, .rtl & .tif respectively).

Example:
File A: 12345_File01.eps
File B: 12345_File01.rtl
File C: 12345_File01.tif

However, occasionally file 'B' has some info appended to it name.

Example:
File A: 12345_File01.eps
File B: 12345_File01_#123.rtl
File C: 12345_File01.tif

  The script creates a list of filenames by looking in 'Directory B' and then stripping off their extensions. It then looks in 'Directory C' to see if it can find a matching file (12345_File01). As long as filename 'B' hasn't been altered, it works great. When filename 'B' has been changed, the matching file 'C' can't be found because it hasn't been similarly altered. I can't control the renaming of file 'B' nor can I alter the name of file 'C' to match. In addition, the additional information appended to 'B' changes frequently, as well as what exactly is added. Sometimes it's just a number, other times it's text or any combination of the two.

  Here is a small section of the script so you can see what's going on:

      // Check to see if converted file already exists
      if (!file_exists($file_c)) {

            // Check to see if there is a source tif to be converted
            if (file_exists($file_b)) {
                  // Image Magick follows...
                  $command = "convert \"$file_b\" -quality 85 \"$file_c\"";
                  system( $command );
            } else {
                  die("Woah! I can't find the preview file for {$_GET['file']}.");
            }
      }

What I need to be able to do is, given either:

 "12345_File01"
 OR
 "12345_File01_#123"
 OR
 "12345_File01_Info_#1234"

...to look in a directory and recognize that the file "12345_File01" is the one it is looking for.

Basically, I'm trying to match everything BEFORE the extension of File 'C' (12345_File01 in this case) but given the filename from 'B'

Does this make sense? Is it possible?

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2005-11-10 at 19:47:30ID21627270
Tags

exists

,

php

,

another

,

find

Topic

PHP Scripting Language

Participating Experts
4
Points
500
Comments
6

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. Conversion from EPS to TIF not easy
    Hello, I'd like to convert this EPS file into tif, but my software won't import it, on account of an incompatibility issues. (I'm thinking perhaps it's Mac). I asked the support team to help us out with the Corel software I'm using to do the conversion, but in spite of the...
  2. [Q] Can you create an EPS file(vector) with PHP???
    Howdy... Do you know if you can use PHP to create an EPS file??? Is there any library that I can use to do that??? For example, there is a string that says 'Hello' and the font color/size/type is set, and I want to create an EPS file out of that information... Thank you......
  3. Open a .tif file in JSP
    I have a .TIF file that I want to display to the users. Since tif files can't be displayed in a browser, is there another way to open a tif file?

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: RQuadlingPosted on 2005-11-11 at 01:03:05ID: 15272195

Assuming that the PROPER filename is only ever 12 characters long (12345_file01 is 12 characters), then you COULD ...

$file_c = $sDirectoryForCFiles . substr(basename($file_b), 0, 12) . '.tif'; // Assuming the extensions are fixed for a, b and c.

 

by: fiboPosted on 2005-11-11 at 01:28:20ID: 15272285

Have you tried looking if the (file name C before the extension) is present at the leftmost part of B
I would do that as follows:

// filenames are stored in $stringC and $stringB
// to make things simpler in the line below, it is assumed that $stringC does NOT start with a '.' in position 0
// otherwise look for solutions at http://www.php.net/manual/function.strrpos.php
$length_filename= strppos ($stringC, '.');
$my_filename= ($length_filename = 0) ? $stringC : substr ( $stringC, 0, $length_filename) ;

$pos = strpos ($stringB , $my_filename) ;
// finding 0 is not enough to decide! see http://www.php.net/manual/function.strpos.php

if ($pos === false) { // that's 3 = signs
   // $my_filename is not part of $stringB
   $it_matches = false;
} else {
   // $my_filename is part of $stringB... but we are interested only if $pos is 0
   $it_matches = ($pos = 0 ) ? true : false;
};
or, to use a shorter form for this last "coumpound if":
$it_matches = (($pos === false) || ($pos > 0)) ? false : true ;

 

by: kamermansPosted on 2005-11-11 at 01:52:39ID: 15272379

This might do the trick:

          $path = dirname($file_b);
          $handle = opendir($path);
          $file_c = 0;
          while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
                 if(substr($file, -3, 3) == 'eps'){
                      $epsfiles[] = $file;
                 }
          }
          $closedir($handle);
          foreach($epsfiles as $file){
                    preg_match('/^($file.*)/', $file_b, $matches);
                    $file_c = substr($matches[0], 0, strlen($matches[0]) - 4) . 'tif';
          }

 

by: RQuadlingPosted on 2005-11-11 at 01:58:01ID: 15272399

fibo.

It is better to use basename() to get the name of a file rather than using string manipulation.

File names MAY contain '.'! "Sales 2005.10.01.xls" for example.

 

by: TunaMaxxPosted on 2005-11-11 at 09:44:53ID: 15275330

RQuadling: Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, as I forgot to point out, the filename length will change. USUALLY they will start with a 5 digit identifier, then an underscore, etc., but frequesntly the remaining bits of source filename will change. Therefore, there is no way to  rely on a certain number of characters.

fibo and kamermans: Thank you for your  suggestions as well. I'm not at work to test them out right now, but I can follow along with the logic in each. As soon as I get back there, I will test each of them out and report back. By the way, fibo, thanks for commenting your code so clearly and adding the URL's for more info.

 

by: gerodimPosted on 2005-11-12 at 08:19:29ID: 15280079

The best way to do that is to use the strstr function with the php directory listing...

E.G. the dir function:

chdir('c:/windows');
$d = dir(".");
while (false !== ($entry = $d->read())) {
echo $entry."<br>";
}
$d->close();


this prints out the data so by changing the above code u can do whatever u like with them
you just have to change echo $entry line..
As for the strstr function u can find out more in:

http://gr.php.net/manual/en/function.strstr.php

it just checks out if a string is part of another string so combined with the $entry var and your filename that should do it

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...