Compare PHP array value to PART of a string

Question

I'm trying to automate sifting through my online bank statements. Here's a trivial example of what I need.

I have an array of restaurants against which I sort my credit card statements:

$restaurants = array(
    array("vendor" => "default",
            "type" => "default"
    ),
    array("vendor" => "dunkin",
            "type" => "pastry"
    ),
    array("vendor" => "mcdonald",
            "type" => "fastfood"
    ),
    array("vendor" => "olive",
            "type" => "italian"
    )
);

The statement entries themselves can be a rather descriptive string:

$string = "McDonald's Restaurants Incorporated";

I've tried using array_search and in_array, but they seem to do the reverse of what I need, or they need an exact match like in the example below, but it is not what I need:

$result = array_search($string, array_column($restaurants, 'vendor'));
return $restaurants[$result]['type'];

// returns "default" because "McDonald's Restaurants Incorporated" != "mcdonald"

I would like to be able to match the array value "mcdonald" to any string that contains that chunk of it, and then return type "fastfood" for it. Don't worry about handling multiple occurrences.

scrowler · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-29 03:45:39Z

3

You'll need a combination of things - a search-in-string method, and for it to be case insensitive.

You can accomplish this with something like this:

/**
 * Perform a string-in-string match case insensitively
 * @param  string $string
 * @param  array  $restaurants
 * @return string|false
 */
function findRoughly($string, $restaurants)
{
    $out = false;
    foreach ($restaurants as $restaurant) {
        // Set up the default value
        if ($restaurant['type'] == 'default' && !$out) {
            $out = $restaurant['type'];
            // Stop this repetition only
            continue;
        }
        // Look for a match
        if (stripos($string, $restaurant['vendor']) !== false) {
            $out = $restaurant['type'];
            // Match found, stop looking
            break;
        }
    }
    return $out;
}

And use it like so:

$result = findRoughly("McDonald's", $restaurants);

Example here.

answered Jul 29, 2015 at 3:45

scrowler

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3 Comments

LexxTal Over a year ago

Works exactly right! Thank you for the example code, much appreciated.

blasko Over a year ago

This could be done more efficiently. Why do you use the temporary variable $out? Why not return $restaurant['type'] as soon as it is found and have a default return statement outside of the loop? This would shorten your function to 9 lines not counting comments.

scrowler Over a year ago

Hi @blasko, the temporary variable is to handle a situation where the default value might not be at the start of the array but perhaps the middle or end. If neither a match not default is found, return false

Nick Coons · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-29 03:50:47Z

I don't think there's a function in PHP that will handle this quite as cleanly as you want. But you can whip up a quick function to loop through the array looking for matches:

$type = call_user_func( function( $restaurants, $string ) {
    foreach ( $restaurants as $restaurant ) {
        if ( stripos( $string, $restaurant['vendor'] ) !== FALSE ) {
            return $restaurant['type'];
        }
    }

    return $restaurant[0]['type'];
}, $restaurants, $string );

If $string is "McDonald's Restaurants Incorporated", then $type will be "fastfood". The above makes the assumption that the first instance in the array is your default return if none of the specified values match.

I just built this as an anonymous function/closure out of convenience, which I usually would to do cleanly enclose something I only plan to run once. But it may be cleaner as a named function in your application.

blasko · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-29 10:10:56Z

0

I took a different (functional) approach by using array_map and array_filter. It's rather compact due to the use of builtin functions, and gets the job done.

 // Anonymous function which gets passed to array_map as a callback
 // Checks whether or not the vendor is in the $key_string (your restaurant)
$cmp = function ($array) use ($key_string) {
    if (stristr($key_string, $array['vendor'])) {
        return $array['type'];
    }
    return "default";
};

function validResult($item) {
    return isset($item) && gettype($item)=="string";
}

$key_string = "McDonald's Restaurants Incorporated";
$results = array_map($cmp, $restaurants);
$results = array_pop(array_filter($results, validResult));

edited Jul 29, 2015 at 10:10

answered Jul 29, 2015 at 8:09

blasko

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Comments

Ethan22 · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-29 03:59:43Z

-1

I got fixated on the in_array portion of the question. Editing this to use strpos instead.

Try this:

foreach($restaurants as $restaurant)
{
     if(strpos($restaurant['vendor'], $string) !== FALSE)
     {
          return $restaurant['type']; //Or add to an array/do whatever you want with this value.
     }
}

http://php.net/manual/en/function.strpos.php

edited Jul 29, 2015 at 3:59

answered Jul 29, 2015 at 3:42

Ethan22

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1 Comment

LexxTal Over a year ago

The second parameter of in_array() cannot be a string.

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