in reply to Re: Search question
in thread Search question

Thanks Dave... worked great... My next problem is to search the amount field for dollar amounts.... I need to be able to search for dollar amounts in ranges... ie ($1,000 or less) ($1,000 - $1,500) etc, etc.. here's my code for the dollar amount to search and it doesn't seem to work right.. 
<select name="searchprice" size="1" value="price">
    <option value="\$" selected>Any Price
    <option value="<1000">Under \$1,000
    <option value="1000-1500">\$1,000 - \$1,500
    <option value="1501-2500">\$1,500 - \$2,500
    <option value="2501-5000">\$2,500 - \$5,000
    <option value="5001-10000">\$5,000 - \$10,000
    <option value="10001-15000">\$10,000 - \$15,000
    <option value="15001-999999">\$15,000 - UP
    </select></font></td></tr>

if ($desc =~ /$form{'searchprice'}/)  
  {print "$desc\n";}

[download]
My data looks like this:

bla bla bla bla $1,000
bla bla $12,500. bla bla
bla $5000 bla bla bla

sometimes it has a comma sometimes it doesn't...
sometimes it has a period directly after it and so on...

____SysAdm

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Search question : Price Regex
by dfog (Scribe) on Mar 11, 2001 at 22:42 UTC
    To match that I would do something like : 
    my ($LowValue, $HighValue) = split("-", $form{'searchprice'});  #makes
+ the two values to compare $Price with
if ($desc =~ m/\$(\d{1,3},?[\d{3},?]*\.?\d{0,2})/) {
    my ($Price) = $1;  #sets $Price equal to the match in the regex
    $Price =~ s/,//g;  #Strips out all commas
    if (($LowValue <= $Price) && ($Price <= $HighValue)) {
    print "$desc\n";
    }
} else {
    print "No price found in $desc\n";
}

    [download]
    The regular expression is assuming that all of the prices in the description will begin with a $, and that they are properly formatted in terms of money (no misplaced commas and such). I believe this will do what you are looking for.

    Dave
[reply]
[d/l]

      Dave... again you have enlightened me... I have incorported this little sniplet into the previous (4) finds before printing $desc... works great!!! Once again... a major thanks from me to you...

      The only line I don't quite understand is this one : 

      if ($desc =~ m/\$(\d{1,3},?[\d{3},?]*\.?\d{0,2})/) {

      [download]

      It's looking to match any decimal- but I don't get the (1,3) or the (3},? --- does it mean any decimal up to 3 places prior to the comma??? I tried using a 15001-999999 search criteria and it doesn't seem to like the 6 decimal places...

      Your help is tremendous... I owe you one....

      _______SysAdm

      2001-03-11 Edit by Corion : Removed PRE tags

[reply]
[d/l]
        The code I used to create and use that regex (Commented) is 
        #!/usr/bin/perl -w

my %form = (
        'searchprice' =>  "15001-9999999",
       );
my @Tests = ('$1600', ' $1,300 ', ' $1,600,000.43 ', ' $1600. ', ' $16
+00.43 ');

foreach my $desc (@Tests) {
    print "Testing $desc\n";
    my ($LowValue, $HighValue) = split("-", $form{'searchprice'});  #s
+plits two values to compare desc to
    if ($desc =~ m/  \$     #Matches the dollar sign
                 (      #Begins gathering the digit grouping
                      \d{1,3},?  #Grabs between 1 and 3 digits.  
                                 #There must be at least one and at mo
+st 
                                 #3 before the first comma.
                      [\d{3},?]* #This grabs groups of 3 digits, 
                                 #and the comma after them if it exist
+s
                      \.?\d{0,2} #This grabs the final decimal point a
+nd 
                                 #up to two places after it if they ex
+ist
                     )#Ends the digit grouping
                 /x  #tells it to ignore whitespace
        ) {
    my ($Price) = $1;  #sets $Price equal to the match in the regex
    $Price =~ s/,//g;  #Strips out commas
    print "TestPrice $Price\n";
    if (($LowValue <= $Price) && ($Price <= $HighValue)) {
        print "$desc\n";
    }
    } else {
    print "No price found in $desc\n";
    }
    print "\n";
}

        [download]
        The regex itself isn't quite as clean as it could be, but it works on the assumption that there is one and only one properly formatted price in each $desc.

        Dave
[reply]
[d/l]

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