title: PHP inserting parsed values from text file into MySQL DB
body: <p>I'm new to PHP and am trying to parse certain text from a txt file, and then insert the text into a MySQL database. So, let's get more specific. The file's format is as such, and it is  repeated through the document end. the ellipses represent the previous and next tones.</p>
  
  <pre><code>...
  
  [Tone27]                            
  Atone = 707.3                        
  Btone = 746.8                        
  Btonelength = 3                        
  Btonedebounce = 1                    
  Description = Fire Department 1                
  mp3_Emails = email@address.com,email2@address.com,email3@address.com          
  amr_Emails = email2@textmessaging.com,email1@textmessaging.com        
  alert_command = c:\test.bat                
  post_email_command = c:\test2.bat            
  radio_frequency = 154.475    
  exclude_from = 13:25                        
  exclude_to = 13:35                        
  exclude_emails = email2@textmessaging.com,email2@address.com
  
  ... 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What I want to do is parse the first items(e.g. '[tone27]') in each "tone block" from the file and insert it into the first field of a NEW row in the db. I then need to evaluate what comes before each line's " = ", for instance "Atone," and insert what comes after that line's " = ", for instance "707.3" into a field by that name. so, this row may look like this in the db:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$id | [tone27] | 707.3 |746.8 | 3 | 1 | Fire Department 1 |email1@x.com,email2@x.com,e...|...
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and so on...</p>
  
  <p>i've been able to isolate each thing by performing string functions, but am unsure of how to set up a loop that would insert each value properly. Here's the code I used to isolate them, but it's not helping at all with actually getting them into the database.</p>
  
  <pre><code>$txt_file    = file_get_contents('config/tones.txt');
  $rows        = explode("\n", $txt_file);
  foreach($rows as $row =&gt; $data)
  {   
  $row_data = explode(' = ', $data);
  
  if ((isset($row_data[0])) &amp;&amp; ($row_data[0] !== " " )){
      $info[$row]['attribute'] = $row_data[0];
      $info_attribute = trim($info[$row]['attribute']);
  }
  if (isset($row_data[1])){
      $info[$row]['value']         = $row_data[1];
      $info_value = trim($info[$row]['value']);
      //display data
      echo 'Row ' . $row . ' Attribute: ' . $info_attribute . '&lt;br /&gt;';
      echo 'Row ' . $row . ' Value: ' . $info_value . '&lt;br /&gt;';
  } elseif (($info[$row]['attribute']) &amp;&amp; (!empty($info_attribute))) {
      echo "&lt;br&gt;";
      echo 'Row ' . $row . ' Attribute: ' . $info_attribute . '&lt;br /&gt;';
      continue;
  }      
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'M A NOOB, NO DOUBT. I'M LOST. Thanks in advance for your help!!!</p>
  
  <pre><code>****|| EDIT ||****
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Thanks for all of the excellent answers! here's what I've resultingly come up with. No queries yet, just a simple dash of the read portion of CRUD, but the code will be the same, only with queries. A big thanks to @leepowers for introducing me to the wonderful parse_ini_file() function. </p>
  
  <pre><code>foreach(parse_ini_file("config/tones.txt", true) as $k =&gt; $v){
  extract($v, EXTR_SKIP);
  echo "&lt;br&gt;";
  echo $k . "&lt;br&gt;"; 
  foreach($v as $sv =&gt; $ssv){ 
  
      $lcase_sv = strtolower($sv); 
      if (trim($lcase_sv) == 'amr_emails'){ 
          echo "sv: amr_Emails:&lt;br&gt;"; 
          echo "ssv:&lt;br&gt;";
          $eA = explode(',', trim($ssv));
          foreach($eA as $eK =&gt; $eV){ 
              echo "email" . filter_var($eK + 1, FILTER_SANITIZE_NUMBER_INT) . ": " . $eV . "&lt;br&gt;"; 
          }
      } elseif (trim($lcase_sv) == 'mp3_emails'){ 
          echo "ssv:&lt;br&gt;";
          $eA = explode(',', trim($ssv));
          foreach($eA as $eK =&gt; $eV){
              echo "email" . filter_var($eK + 1, FILTER_SANITIZE_NUMBER_INT) . ": " . $eV . "&lt;br&gt;";
          }
      }else {
          echo "sv: " . $sv .", " . "s: " . $ssv . "&lt;br&gt;"; 
      }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>}     </p>