parsing a text file in php and retrieving information

I'm trying to parse a basic text file in PHP, but not sure where to begin.

The file contains info such as:

http://pastebin.com/ahqtJzH6

You'll notice that the information I need to capture is split开发者_运维问答 up by new lines. Right now I'm just throwing every new line into a $applicant[] array, but I need to get rid of the preceding text in each line.

I was thinking I probably need to use regex or something to single out just the data I need. Ideas?

Thank you!

Without using regex, you can do this:

$fp = fopen('textfile.txt', 'r');

$return = array();
while ($line = fgets($fp)) {
   $parts = explode(':', $line);
   $key = trim($parts[0]);
   unset($parts[0]);
   $value = str_replace("\n", '', implode(':', $parts));
   $return[$key] = trim($value);
}

print_r($return);

Would output something like:

Array (
  [Applicant SSN]  => 123456789
  [Applicant Name] => BOB, BOB
  ...
)

You could use strpos to find the : character and then grab everything after that. You can use trim to get rid of extra whitespace.

$lines = file('textfile.txt');

foreach ($lines as $line) {
   $p = strpos($line, ':');
   if ($p!==false) {
      $key = trim(substr($line, 0, $p));
      $value = trim(substr($line, $p+1));

      // do whatever with your key & value

   }
}