Simple PHP Q?

reteP

I'm trying to check a file to see if it contains a word. There is just one word on each line in the external file. The "word" I am searching for is passed as a variable to the page called "word". My guess is that the "error" in on line 6. Is it possible to do this comparison in PHP?

1 if($word) {
2 $words = file("dictionary.html");
3 $sizeof = count($words);
4
5 for($i=0; $i < $sizeof; $i++) {
6 if($word == $file_contents[$i]) {
7 $flag=1;
8 } else {
9 print ("$domain does not equal $file_contents[$p]<br>\n");
10 }
11 }
12 if($flag) {
13 print ("This word has been found.");
14 } else {
15 print ("Sorry, the word is not in this page.");
16 }
17
18 }


Looking forward to your helpful replies!


reteP

I before E except after C. This is a weird society we live in.

The Corinthian

For a start:

2 $words = file("dictionary.html");

Will return an array, so you would want to run through:

6 if($word == $words[$i]) {

Also, I don’t know if an exact match is the best thing to be looking for as each element in the array will also include a carriage return (+line feed if you’re running the Win32 CGI version), not to mention HTML tags (it is a HTML file you’re searching after all). You may want to use another comparison method, such as stristr(), strstr() or substr().

Also, a few other things of note:

$flag should really be defined outside of the if/then conditional as it will remain undefined if no match is found. It probably should also be defined as a boolean rather than an integer. Also you refer to $p on line 9 - I assume this should be $i. And on line 9, I assume $domain should be $word.

Hope this helps.

---

"Just because I'm evil doesn't mean I'm not nice." - Charlie Fulton

dahamsta

Here's a question - where did the variable $file_contents spring from? Also. you don't need parenthesis when you're using print() (or echo()).

if($word) {
	$words = file("dictionary.html");
	// Initializing $flag is good coding procedure
	$flag = 0;
	// Unless you need a count later, you can count() inside the for construct.
	for ($i=0; $i<count($words); $i++) {
		// You need to trim() off whitespace or you won't get a match.
		if ($word == trim($words[$i])) {
			$flag = 1;
		} else {
			// Why are you printing here? Debugging?
			print "$domain does not equal $file_contents[$p]<br>\n";
		}
	}
	if($flag) {
		print "This word has been found.";
	} else {
		print "Sorry, the word is not in this page.";
	}
}

HTH,
adam

The Corinthian

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by dahamsta:
Here's a question - where did the variable $file_contents spring from?</font>

Looking at the use of $domain later in the script, I'd guess $words was originally $file_contents when he cut 'n pasted the script from a snarfed script.

---

"Just because I'm evil doesn't mean I'm not nice." - Charlie Fulton

[This message has been edited by The Corinthian (edited 30-07-2001).]