sorting by a variable

[bakkufu]

hi there - i am writing a script for gaming clan memberlisting - i have two scripts which can sort ppl by their administration level and by their selected group. Their selected group is a text input string and the admin level is a numeric reference.

the problem lies in making the data display when sorting by the text string. I am displaying the code for each section like this.

##SUBCATAGORY START##
print "Selected group name:\n<br><br>";

$i = 0;
while ($i < count($thedata)) {
$temp1 = explode("|", $thedata[$i]);
$t_nick = $temp1[0];
$t_email = $temp1[1];
$t_rank = $temp1[2];
$t_squad = $temp1[3];

    if ($t_squad == "TEXT STRING HERE") {
            print "<a href=\"mailto:$t_email\"><font color=\"#999999\">Cancer-$t_nick</font></a>";
            if (Chop($t_squad) != "") {
                    print " (<i>$t_squad</i>)<br>";
            } else {
                    print "<br>";
            }
    }
    $i++;

}
print "<br><br>";
##SUBCATAGORY END##

#But when i run the script i get the group headers and no data displayed.

Can anyone fix this? its driving me nuts!!!

[Weedpacket]

I'm sorry; I don't see any sorting. You're not really looking to see if $t_squad is equal to "TEXT STRING HERE", are you?
Could you provide a bit more relevant and specific detail (no, I'm not sure which bits would be relevant - that's part of the problem). If you've got it working fine with a numeric index, what are you doing that's so different when you use a string (they shouldn't be that different)?

[bakkufu]

when i say text string here i mean squad names... the squad names are fixed but its easier to modify things if its a text string which is inputted not a drop down.

It works when i change

if ($t_squad == "TEXT STRING HERE") {

to

if ($t_rank == "1") {

( the 1 denotes what the rank is assigned to in the drop down box i use to select ranks for ppl when inputting their data )

[Weedpacket]

So the question you should be asking yourself is: "does $t_squad have the value I think it does?"

Just before you go to test it against "TEXT STRING HERE", just echo it out, and see if it is equal to "TEXT STRING HERE". While you're at it, chuck in an else block on the end of that if statement, which echoes something like "Can't Happen: t_squad=\"$t_squad\"". (The extra " are important because whitespace will make the test fail; both strings need to be exactly the same, byte-for-byte.)

If $t_squad has the wrong value, backtrack and see where $t_squad got it. Work back from there, because it sounds as though somewhere along the way something's miswritten, or misunderstood, or both.

[bakkufu]

hmm, well, i've tried doing an exact data match to see if it will work - but it doesnt display anything, if i take out an = sign or add ! to the == in line

if ($t_squad == "TEXT STRING HERE") {

i get the whole list in every section. I cant get it to sort anythign which is annoying! should i post the whole script so you can see?

[Weedpacket]

Did you try my (basic debugging technique) suggestions?

[bakkufu]

yeah, i tried it and it didnt make any difference, the data still doesnt how up - i can get all the data to be displayed in every group but it doesnt sort the groups out and only display the ones for the relevent group.

[dalecosp]

Maybe.....

.......but realize that when Weed's suggesting 'echo it out' he means to have the script print the value of the variable to the page so that you can see what value $t_squad actually has.

As an outside observer, it's not entirely clear from your posts that you have tried that.

Most likely, it's just the difficulty of remote communication...IOW, you have done it, but I'm too dense to see the fact....however, debugging is the 'grunt work' of scripting, and sometimes the only way to make the thing work is to go over it until the profit margin is, well, unprofitable.

dalecosp

[bakkufu]

well, all i need it to do is print data to the screen if the variable matches the string, im absolutely rubbish at debugging and am blindly trying to do it :S

If anyone thinks they can help or debug the script, please email me as i am officially completely stuck

[e-mail]

[bakkufu]

ok - i've added

error_reporting(E_ALL);

and removed the undefined variable errors - there are tag errors for some reason, but the script works ok with tags when it comes to adding and removing from members.dat

the data still doesnt display though 🙁

If anyone can help - please get me on MSN - [e-mail] as this is really bugging me now!?