How to Search and Display Lines Containing a Specific String in a Text File Using PHP?

PHP Script to Search and Display Entire Line Containing Specified String from Text File

To create a PHP script that searches for and displays the entire line containing a specified string from a text file, follow these steps:

1. Open the Text File: Use file_get_contents() function to read the contents of the text file into a variable.
2. Escape Special Characters: Utilize preg_quote() function to escape any special characters in the search string to prevent unexpected results.
3. Create Regular Expression: Formulate a regular expression that matches the entire line containing the search string. Use the following pattern: "/^.*$pattern.*$/m". It ensures that the search string can appear anywhere on the line.
4. Perform Search: Utilize preg_match_all() function to search the text file contents for all occurrences of the regular expression. The matching lines will be stored in an array.
5. Display Results: Iterate over the matches and display each entire line.
6. Handle No Matches: If the search string is not found, echo an appropriate message indicating the lack of matches.

Here's a PHP script that implements the above steps:

<?php $file = 'numorder.txt';
$searchfor = 'aullah1';

header('Content-Type: text/plain');

$contents = file_get_contents($file);
$pattern = preg_quote($searchfor, '/');
$pattern = "/^.*$pattern.*$/m";

if (preg_match_all($pattern, $contents, $matches)) {
  echo "Found matches:\n";
  echo implode("\n", $matches[0]);
} else {
  echo "No matches found";
}
?>

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