> >Okay, so how do you know what to replace something like [author] with? > >What exactly are you doing again? I've forgotten the original question. > >:) > > Ok, got a sentence, like: > > a pile of [metal] 600 feet wide and 30 feet tall. On top of it is > a [monster]. > > The items in the [] represent the names of files containing lists of > possible results. So I need to grab the first one, "metal," open up > "metal.php," grab a random item from it, such as "gold," and replace > [metal] in the original sentence with the result. I should now have: > > a pile of gold 600 feet wide and 30 feet tall. On top of it is a > [monster]. > > Now, what I was doing before was strpos'ing the []'s and grabbing what as > in between to be the file name, then repeating in a loop until I've > eliminated all of the [] items. The reason I'm doing it in a loop is > because the results of the "metal.php" random item may include their own > [] > items, which also need to be run exactly the same way. A result might be > "gold [objects]" and then I have to run through the objects.php file and > get a result from that. > > This is what I started with: > > <? > $a = "[adjective] [beginning]"; // temporary item for testing > > $e = strpos($a,"]"); > while ($e) { > echo "A: ".$a."<br />"; > echo "E: ".$e."<br />"; > $f = strpos($a, "["); > echo "F: ".$f."<br />"; > $tmp = substr($a, 0, $f); > $table=substr($a, $f+1, $e-1); > echo "Table: ".$table."<br />"; > $a = substr($a, $e+1, strlen($a)); > $dataFile = $table.".php"; > //$b = getFileElement($dataFile); > $tmp .= $b; > $tmp .= $a; > $a = $tmp; > $e = strpos($a,"]"); > } > echo $a; > ?> > > That should work just fine. I cut out everything up to the first [ and add > it to $tmp. Then I get the next sequence of characters up to the first ] > and use it as a file name for the "getFileElement" function. Add the > result > to $tmp, add what was left after the first ], and viola. > > My problem is that, on the first loop through, strpos returns exactly > where > the first ] is, so I can chop up to that no problem. However, the second > time through the loop, it's one off, which breaks the logic of the loop, I > end up with "beginning]" as my file name.
Here's your fix for the method you are using now, btw: Change: $table=substr($a, $f+1, $e-1); to: $table=substr($a, $f+1, $e-$f-1); $f is position of first [, $e is position of first ]. So, you don't want a substr length of $e-1 (which is from the beginning of the string, you want the length to be the difference of $f from $e. Hope that helps. Your original code was only working for the first one because you started of with a [word]. If you put text before the first [word], it fails on all accounts. ---John W. Holmes... PHP Architect - A monthly magazine for PHP Professionals. Get your copy today. http://www.phparch.com/ -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php