text - Reading .txt files with PHP and store information into variables

Solution:

Why do you need them in variables? An associative array ("map") is the cleaner approach

$result = array();
  // Your loop -->
  $parts = array_map('trim', explode(':', $line_of_text, 2)));
  $result[$parts[0]] = $parts[1];
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Solution:

Use variable variables: http://php.net/manual/en/language.variables.variable.php

Use in your while loop:

$line_of_text = fgets($file_handle);
$parts = explode(':', trim($line_of_text), 2);
${strtolower($parts[0])} = trim($parts[1]);
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Solution:

Note: I don't know how to assign the values into new variables

You can use arrays.

I assume that you've just provided an example of what's in each file - that these patterns may repeat. Before I answer your question, I think it's important you should know that maintaining data in text files is a very bad idea or lots of reasons.

Taking the second file as an example, you've got 2 choices of how you manage this data in PHP - consider your data as a table:

manufctr  model   birthdate   sex
SISYSTEM  DX1     19710108    M
SISYSTEM  DX2     19710305    F
...
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You could either store each row in an array, or each column in an array. And the resulting set of arrays can itself be stored in an array.

How you load and parse the data depends on how consistent the data structure will be (will each entry always be this format, or might it have extra / missing attributes). Whether you read the data into rows or columns depends on how the data is stored in the file and also what you intend doing next with the data.

$read=array();
while (true) {
   $record=array();
   for($x=0; $x<4; $x++) {
      $line_of_text = fgets($file_handle);
      list($k, $v) = explode(':', $line_of_text );
      $record[strtolower(trim($k))]=trim($v);
   }
   $read[]=$record;
   if (feof($file_handle) break;
}
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Solution:

Inside thewhile loop you can compare the line to see what variable you have to assign: PHP: strcmp - Manual

<?php
$file_handle = fopen("data.txt", "r");

while (!feof($file_handle) ) {

  $line_of_text = fgets($file_handle);
  $parts = explode(':', trim($line_of_text) );
  if (strcmp($parts[0], "MANUFACTURER")==0)
      $MANUFACTURER = trim($parts[1]);
  if (strcmp($parts[0], "MODELNAME")==0)
     $MODELNAME = trim($parts[1]);
  [...]
  else
     echo "I haven't recognised that: ".$parts[0];
}

fclose($file_handle);
?>
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Probably you could use aswitch statement

<?php
$file_handle = fopen("data.txt", "r");

while (!feof($file_handle) ) {

  $line_of_text = fgets($file_handle);
  $parts = explode(':', trim($line_of_text) );
  switch($parts[0])
  case 'MANUFACTUREER':
      $manufactureer = $parts[1];
      break;
  case 'MODELNAME':
      $modelname = $parts[1];
      break;
  [...]
}

fclose($file_handle);
?>
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