Question 176084 in PHP Question posted in
Official manual can be found here.

Can I list names of people w/ birthdays today from a .txt file in PHP?

I have a .txt list with a large number of birthdays, in a format like this:

1975-12-13|Amy Lee|[email protected]

I would like to create php code that would go through the whole list, find persons who have a birthday today, and list their names.

What I manage to do is this, but it is showing only one name, even tho there’s multiple birthdays at the same day:

$f=file('birthday.txt');
$today=date('m-d');
for ($i=0; $i<count($f); $i++) {
    $info=explode ('|',$f[$i]);
    if (substr($info[0],5)==$today) {
        $firstlastname= $info[1];
        $message=''.$firstlastname.'';
}
}

return ''.$message.'';

I guess that I should use foreach there somehow, I’m not a pro in PHP obviously, but I don’t know how to do that. Any suggestions please?

Thanks!

Tags:

2

Answers


  1. 0

    Your current code is ok, the only thing is you are overwriting the $message variable inside the loop, hence you will get only one name at the end.

    To fix this use the . operator along with the line break (just to show data in an appropriate way).

    $f=file('birthday.txt');
$today=date('m-d');
$message = '';
for ($i=0; $i<count($f); $i++) {
    $info=explode ('|',$f[$i]);
    if (substr($info[0],5)==$today) {
        $firstlastname= $info[1];
        //concat each name with a new line and remove the initial empty string, 
       //you can use commas instead of new lines as well
        $message .= $firstlastname.'<br/>';
    }
}

echo "These people have a birthday today: ".$message;
    Login or Signup to reply.
  2. 0

    Here’s an alternative using foreach and regex. It also add their names to an array, identified by their email addresses. NB: Two people can have the same names.

    <?php
// Make sure we're in the right directory
$dir = getcwd();
chdir(__DIR__);
// Today's date
$today = date('Y-m-d');
// Array of birthdays
$birthdays = [];
// Message
$msg = '';
if (file_exists('./birthday.txt')) {
    foreach (file('birthday.txt') as $entry) {
        /*
        Check for people with their birthdays today
         */
        if (preg_match('/^' . $today . '|([w ]+)|(.+)$/u', $entry, $matches)) {
            /*
            Let's put their names in $birthdays
           email => Name
            */
            $birthdays[$matches[2]] = $matches[1];
        }
    }
}

// Check if there are birthdays today
if (!empty($birthdays)) {
    /*
    A message
    */
    $msg = 'The following people are celebrating their bithdays today:' . PHP_EOL;
    $names = implode(', ', $birthdays); // their names
    $msg .= $names . PHP_EOL.PHP_EOL; // add their names to the $msg

    /*
    Optional,
    Let's wish them a happy birthday
    You can do any other thing by looping through the $birthdays
    */
    $subject = 'Happy birthday!';
    foreach ($birthdays as $email => $name) {
        $message = "Hello $name, enjoy this special day in celebration of a most wonderful you.nnIts your friend,n Joe";
        $message = wordwrap($message, 70);
        if (@mail($email, $subject, $message)) {
            /*
            Mail sent, lets remove the entry */
            unset($birthdays[$email]);
        }
    }
    /*
    See if some mails weren't delivered
    */
    if (!empty($birthdays)) {
        $error_msg = 'Failed to send mails to the following persons:' . PHP_EOL;
        foreach ($birthdays as $email => $name) {
            $error_msg = $error_msg . "$name ($email), "; // the short form wasn't working, maybe its because of the errors triggered by msmtp.
        }
        $error_msg = rtrim($error_msg, ', ');
    }
}

echo($msg);
if (isset($error_msg ) {
    echo($error_msg);
}

// Set back previous directory
chdir($dir);
    Login or Signup to reply.
Please signup or login to give your own answer.

Back To Top
Search