newbie question re basic sorting

Anon

i have a text file which lists various employee and the hours they worked for the week over a period.

ie
Name hours week no.

Eugene 40 1
Crude 35 1
Eugene 25 2
Crude 35 3

Question:

how do i get the total hours worked per employee? i have the text file in an array and i have explode() the record into another array, (ie multidimensional array) but i cannot figure out how to get a total per employee.

any help much appreciated

daniel

deckrdx

$times = array();

foreach ($file as $line) {
$fields = explode(" ", $line);
$times[$fields[0]] += $fields[1];
}

foreach ($times as $employee => $hours) {
print "$employee worked $hours hours.<br>";
}

This would output....

Eugene worked 65 hours.
Crude worked 70 hours.

Anon

thanks for the quick reply Chad,

i used your code, but had difficulties. As you can see by the output i only got part of it to work properly, Could you please help again?

as i am only a beginner, i am struggling to understand how and why?
ie:
what is $times[$fields[0]] += $fields[1]; trying to do?

in which part of the code is it summing up the hours worked?

what is $employee doing?

thanks
daniel

 echo"<h1>Salary Records - view total records per employee</h1>";

 //read in the entire file. 
 $times = file("./testrecord.txt"); // i assume this is what you meant by
                                            // $times=array();

 foreach($times as $line){   
   $fields = explode(" ", $line);
   $times[$fields[0]] += $fields[1];
 }

 foreach($times as $employee =>$hours){
   print"$employee worked $hours hours.<br>";
 }

Output i get:

0 worked Eugene 40 1 hours.
1 worked Crude 35 1 hours.
2 worked Eugene 25 2 hours.
3 worked Crude 35 3 hours.
Eugene worked 65 hours.
Crude worked 70 hours.

deckrdx

I left a bit out, but you are really close.

what is $times[$fields[0]] += $fields[1]; trying to do?

This is what is doing the summing. When you explode the line from the file, you get an array like this....

$fields[0] = 'Eugene';
$fields[1] = 40;
$fields[2] = 1;

So, the above line would read...

$times['Eugene'] += 40;

The += is short for writing it like this...

$times['Eugene'] = $times['Eugene'] + 40;

I'm taking advantage of the fact that when you first initialize a variable, it defaults to 0.

what is $employee doing?

$employee is acting as the key to the $times array. Check out the changes to your code below, and you should be set.

 echo"<h1>Salary Records - view total records per employee</h1>";

 //read in the entire file. 
 $file = file("./testrecord.txt"); // read the file into the $file array
 $times=array();  // this is just inializing the times array so that PHP knows its an array ahead of time.

 // go through the whole file line by line
 foreach($file as $line){   
   $fields = explode(" ", $line);
   $times[$fields[0]] += $fields[1]; // This is summing the times into the array that is indexed by employee name.
 }

 foreach($times as $employee =>$hours){
   print"$employee worked $hours hours.";
 }

Hope this helps.

Anon

Thanks again Chad

its starting to make sense. it seems to be a simple and therefore clever way of summing the info.

but could i bug you again please?

(i have modied the text file alittle by adding a first name to each record)

i can manipulate the array to calc the total hours worked by each employee and the total weeks worked; i do this by creating two separate arrays.

My problem now is that i want to calc the average per employee but i cannot figure out a way to join the two arrays.

Essence of problem:

2 associative arrays

@$times[$fields[1].", ".$fields[0]] += $fields[2]; // holds total hours worked
@$weeks[$fields[1].", ".$fields[0]] += 1; // holds total weeks worked

i want to either join them into one array (does this mean setting up a multi-dimensional array) or be able to access the two different array elements simultaneously so as to calculate the average.

I have a sinking feeling that i have painted myself into a corner. Is there a way out?

thanks once again
daniel

<?
echo"<h1>Salary Records - view average hours records</h1>";
$file = file("./salrecords.txt"); // read the file into the $file array
$times=array(); //holds the total hours worked
$weeks=array(); //holds the total weeks worked

 //setup the display table
 echo "<table border=1>\n";

 echo"<tr> <th bgcolor = \"#CCCCFF\">No.</td>
           <th bgcolor = \"#CCCCFF\">Employee</td>
           <th bgcolor = \"#CCCCFF\">Total Weeks Worked</td>
       <tr>";

 // calculate the total hours worked
 foreach($file as $line){
   $fields = explode(",", $line);
  @$times[$fields[1].", ".$fields[0]] += $fields[2];//This is summing the hours                                                                          into the times array
  @$weeks[$fields[1].", ".$fields[0]] += 1;//This is counting the weeks worked                                                                into the weeks array

 }

 // output single array only
 $count=0;
 foreach($weeks as $employee =>$weeks){
   $count++;
   echo"<tr><td>$count</td><td>$employee:</td><td>$weeks</td>"."<br>";
 }

 echo "</table>";

deckrdx

There are 2 ways of doing it.
- Create a 3rd array for the average
- Convert to a multi-dim array.

I would probably use the multi-dim array if you familiar enough with it. I updated you script below to do this. I did not test the script, but this should be what you are looking for.

<?
echo"<h1>Salary Records - view average hours records</h1>";
$file = file("./salrecords.txt"); // read the file into the $file array
$employees=array(); //holds the all info on the employees

//setup the display table
echo "<table border=1>\n";

echo"<tr> <th bgcolor = \"#CCCCFF\">No.</td>
<th bgcolor = \"#CCCCFF\">Employee</td>
<th bgcolor = \"#CCCCFF\">Average Hours per Week</td>
<tr>";

// calculate the total hours worked
foreach($file as $line){
$fields = explode(",", $line);
@$employees[$fields[1].", ".$fields[0]]['hours'] += $fields[2];//This is summing the hours
@$employees[$fields[1].", ".$fields[0]]['weeks']++;//This is counting the weeks worked
// ++ will increment the variable by 1

}

// find the average number of hours per week for the employee
// I use the array_keys for the employees because we only need the key and not the value during this itteration
foreach(array_keys($employees) as $employee) {
$employees[$employee]['avghrs'] = $employees[$employee]['hours'] / $employees[$employee]['weeks'];
}

// output single array only
$count=0;
foreach($weeks as $employee =>$values){
$count++;
echo"<tr><td>$count</td><td>$employee:</td><td>$values['avghrs']</td>"."<br>";
}

echo "</table>";
?>

Anon

hey Chad

just like to say thanks for the help you gave me. when i started i didnt have a clue about arrays, but with your help i now know enough to accomplish everyday tasks. so once again thanks for your time.

daniel