CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpstringfloating-pointcurrencytext-parsing
Ben Everard
Ben Everard

Reputation: 13804

Parse string and isolate float value after currency symbol

I want to parse a currency from a string in PHP, I've had a look at number formatter but haven't got PHP 5.3 or the ability to add extensions.

The currency will only exist once per string, and will be prefixed with a currency symbol, in my case the pound sign £. The currency may be in one of the following formats:

£0.90
£100
£100.10
£1000

What would be the best method of achieving this?

Edit

Here is an example string:

Paid a bill £153.93

I want to get the currency value into an variable.

Upvotes: 7

Views: 5748

Answers (6)

mickmackusa
mickmackusa

Reputation: 48031

Do it all, directly, with one native function call -- sscanf().

Consume one or more non-£ characters from the front of the array, but do not assign it to a reference variable or return it (that's what the * does). Capture the float expression string after the £. The captured string will be represented as the lone element in the return array and its data type will be float.

Code: (Demo)

$tests = [
    'Paid a bill £0.90',
    'Paid a bill £100',
    'Paid a bill £100.10',
    'Paid a bill £1000'
];
foreach ($tests as $test) {
    var_dump(sscanf($test, '%*[^£]£%f')[0]);
    echo "\n";
}

Output:

float(0.9)

float(100)

float(100.1)

float(1000)

The non-capturing placeholder (%*[^£]) at the start of the format parameter must match 1 or more characters. If the input string might start with £, simply unconditionally prepend an arbitrary character such as a space like:
scanf(" $test", '%*[^£]£%f')[0]

Upvotes: 0

Ωmega
Ωmega

Reputation: 43683

preg_match('/(?<=£)(?=[\d.]*\d)(\d*(?:\.\d*)?)/', $input, $matches);

will find a match within any of these:

  • £.10
  • £0.10
  • £100
  • £100.00

etc.

Upvotes: 2

cmpreshn
cmpreshn

Reputation: 162

I've got another answer. Might be a touch faster than using strpos, and would be better if there was any possibility of white space in the input.

$input = "£250.75";
$output = floatval(ltrim($input,"£"));
echo $output;
250.75

You could also add other currencies to the char list in ltrim:

$output = floatval(ltrim($input,"£$¢"));

This would strip $ or £ or ¢ from the left side of your number, as well as white space, which would break the solution above which uses strpos. Also, this would give the same result if the currency symbol was left off in some cases.

Upvotes: 7

codenamepenryn
codenamepenryn

Reputation: 461

$price = (float) substr($input, 1, strlen($input) - 1);

Upvotes: -3

Alec Gorge
Alec Gorge

Reputation: 17410

(float)substr($input, strpos($input, "£")+1);

This will get you the following results:

float(0.9)
float(100)
float(100.1)
float(1000)
float(153.93)

EDIT: updated to reflect the change to question. this is assuming all strings are like the one you gave as an example.

Upvotes: 10

Dave Child
Dave Child

Reputation: 7901

You could do it with a regular expression ($matches[1] will have your value):

preg_match('/£([0-9]+|[0-9]+\.?[0-9]{2})/', $text, $matches);

Upvotes: 0

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