high scores script

Anon

Could someone give me a hand on how to create a high scores script for a game?
So far I've got the text file with "score - user name" pairs delimited by ";"

I put it into an array that looks like this
0 "Joe|55"
1 "Marge|67"
et cetera

I am not sure what to do next? If someone can explain even just the logic, I would greatly appreciate it. It's my first PHP script, although I used to program in Lingo.

           Thank you
                 Natalia.

Anon

fill all entries back to array, insert new score at certain position and write back only top 10 positions [to text file].

can you make it?

badman

hello

You can use session and arrays together to make this.

register an array using session_start() and session_register("myarray")
you can keep adding name and scores pair to this array

subsequently all the pages that you link to will have this array available!!

PS: all the pages just need to have session_start() as their first output line.

try it and get back to me.
cheers!

Anon

I am a bit confused with "fill all entries back to array" part.
A thingie like

0 joe:55
1 margie:44

is called a property list in Lingo
index property:value

and there are functions available to extract any of the elements if any one of the others is known. You can get index, if you know the value, or property if you know the index

This is called "database-like interaction"
since Director by itself does not work with databases (there are extras available, that help it out)

So I guess I am looking for a similar function in PHP if it exists. Or I might have to create two arrays and relate them.
How would I do it in this case?

The next step would be passing the top ten scores to Flash, where the original game exists, but I think I can handle that.

               Thank you!

badman

see the functions

list() and each() under array functions in the php manual.

this shud help you.

what game are you developing by the way?
If you dont mind..tell something about it

Anon

The game is for geeks who work a lot with computer colour(or future geeks - multimedia students.
You can see it in the works at

http://www.doubleudot.addr.com/just_rgb_game.html

I wish Flash wrote to a text file! The PHP part is driving me nuts!

badman

hey relax!!

tell me in detail about the problem you are facing and then i will think on a design about how to work around it.

as far as i get it, you need to have an array of names and scores, that can be done by list() and each(), foreach() as told earlier.

if you can spell out the problem, i will tell you how to go about it. By problem i mean what you wish to achieve, the objective.

i saw your game, the intro is very nice(and feminine too :-) )

cheers!

Anon

Thanks for the help offer!
That's what my manual says about list() and each()
<quote>
Rather than having to loop through loads of empty values, the list() and each() functions allow you to return only the elements in the array that contain data. This allows you to display the whole contents of the array with the minimum amount of fuss. You would use the while loop to perform this task for you, like this:

while (list(IndexValue, ElementContents)=each(ArrayName)
</quote>

The thing is, my ElementContents look like this
"Joe:55"
I need to sort the array according to the number in ElementContents.
How do I do that?
Thanks a lot!

badman

glad to know taht you are finally moving on the right track!!

here's what you can use(its from the manual, check array functions-> asort() )

$fruits = array ("d"=>"lemon", "a"=>"orange", "b"=>"banana", "c"=>"apple");
asort ($fruits);
while (list ($key, $val) = each ($fruits)) {
echo "$key = $val\n";
}
you can use the same thing, instead a b c d use joe jane milord milady etc

on sorting the results will be as per low to high scores(ascending) while the names will be correctly refrring to the scores( see the output of above code snippet). now you have to extract last ten elements of this array(for ten highest scores this willl need some figuring out!. i am thinking over )

makes sense?

badman

hey use this code this will return the array fruits with scores arranged in descending order, run it and see(ignore the previous code)

$fruits = array ("d"=>"orange", "a"=>"banana", "b"=>"apple", "c"=>"curd");
asort ($fruits);
$fruits=array_reverse($fruits);
while (list ($key, $val) = each ($fruits)) {
echo "$key = $val\n";
}

Anon

Hi, rj!
great thanks for your help! I understand php a lot more now.
I found a plug-in script for high scores calculation, very detailed and thorough.
it's at http://www.k2w.f2s.com/software/scorekeeper/index.html
Thanks again!
Natalia