PHP Search and echo Array containing string

Question

This appears to be a simple task, but none of the previous posts quite addresses the nuances of this particular problem. I appreciate your patience with a new programmer.

I want to divide a text file (comments.txt) into arrays with the tilde as a divider. Then I want to pass a user string variable (nam) to the PHP and search for this string. The result should echo every whole array that contains the string anywhere inside of it.

For example:
Array ( [0] => hotdog [1] => milk [2] => dog catcher )

A search for "dog" would produce on screen: hotdog dog catcher

<?php

 $search = $_POST['nam'];
 $file = file_get_contents('comments.txt');
 $split = explode("~", $file);

 foreach ($split as $subarray)
 {
    if(in_array($search, $subarray))
    {
       echo $subarray;
    }
 }
?>

The simple task is now this embarrassing mess. If you are patient enough, could someone demonstrate the above code correctly? Thanks for your attention.

Answer 1

Assuming you have 'comments.txt' and it contains something like:

hamburger~hotdog~milk~dog catcher~cat~dogbone

then this should work

$comments = file_get_contents("comments.txt");
$array = explode("~",$comments);

$search = "dog";
$matches = array();

foreach($array as $item){         // check each comment in array
    if(strstr($item, $search)){   // use strstr to check if $search is in $item
        $matches[] = $item;       // if it is, add it to the array $matches
    }
}
var_dump($matches);

Answer 2

First, you might want to try using file() instead of file_get_contents(). This should do what you're looking for:

<?php
$search = $_POST['nam'];
$file = file('contents.txt');
$matches = array();
foreach ($file as $k => $v) {
    if ($a = explode('~', $v)) {
        foreach ($a as $possible_match) {
        if (preg_match('"/'. $search .'"/i', $possible_match)) {
            $matches[] = $possible_match;
        }
    }
}
print_r($matches);
?>

This method will allow you to maintain several different records (one in each line of the file) and interpret/process them independently.