very long switch...way to shorten?

cdpapoulias

Hello,

I have a huge switch statement, the beginning follows here:

switch ($section_name) {
	case "home":
		$file_name = "./website/side/side_" . $section_name . ".htm";
		$side = get_side($file_name);
		break;
	case "about":
		$num = count ($about_section_array);
		for ($i=0; $i < $num; $i++) {
			if ($about_section_array[$i] == $page_name) {
				$side = $side . " <b><a href='http://www.stgeorge.org/" . $script_name . "?section=" . $section_name . "&page=" . $about_section_array[$i] . "'>" . $about_section_name_array[$i] ."</a></b><br>";
			} else {
	             $side = $side . " <a href='http://www.stgeorge.org/" . $script_name . "?section=" . $section_name . "&page=" . $about_section_array[$i] . "'>" . $about_section_name_array[$i] ."</a><br>";
			}
		}
		break;
	case "cal":
         ... six or seven times ...

I would like to know if there is a way to shorten this, since it's now a huge piece of code. All each case statement does is take values from an array (the array name is the only one that changes based on the switch statement) and sends them to the browser.

And ideas to get rid of this ugly code?

Thank you!
Dinos P.

kparker

As long as $section_name comes from something you specify directly (i.e. not via a POST or GET variable) you can create a series of PHP files based on the section name, and then just say:

include($section_name . '.php');

but this is course fairly risky if the value of the variable is something the user could horse around with!

cdpapoulias

Hhmmm...unfortunately section_name is in the URL...have you ever used PHP's variable variables? Would they work here?

Thanks again!
Dinos

kparker

variable variables:

You'd be up against the same validation limitations. Perhaps the shortest way to code this (not saying anything about the runtime performance relative to other methods) would be to define all the permitted names in an array, and create
a separate php file to deal with each:

$sections = array( 'one' => 1, 'two' => 2, .... );

if ($sections[ $section_name ] > 0)
   include( $section_name . '.php' );
else
   weve_got_a_hacker();

kparker

One additional neat feature of this method is that it makes it easy to have access levels:

$sections = array( 'public1' => 1, 'public2' => 1, 'secure1' => 4, .... );

$need_level = $sections[ $section_name ];

if ($need_level < 1)
   echo "You don't exist. Go away!";
elseif ( $need_level < $user_level )
   header("Location: /index.php");
else
   include( $section_name . '.php' );