Adding strings to each other

[mbhcool]

Ok! I have this script but I'm puzzled! .. I assigned each letter (a, b ,c ...etc.) to a number .. so whenever I write a word (cake) it should write the numbers .. but how do I make it use the "+" function to give me the total result?

here is a slice of the code ::

<?PHP
include("header.inc")
?>
<?
for ($x = 0; $x < strlen($userString); $x++)
{
$thischar = substr($userString, $x, 1,);

if ($thischar == "a)
{echo ("1);}
else
if ($thischar == "b)
{echo ("2);}
else
print ("(ERROR)");
}

then it prints the resulted numbers in a textarea field...
How can I make the script do the function "+" to a & b so that ab=3 as assigned in the script?

Thank you!

[mbhcool]

Ok I added this ::

if ($thischar == " ")
{$total = $x + $x;}
else

now the problem is >> a a a = 6.. not 3 !!!!!

Help please!

[altexis]

You can use the ord() function 🙂
Every character is represented by a number.
For example "a" is 97, "b" is 98 and so on...
Note: "A" is 65 ... NOT 97!

so you can use this function instead of the IFs
have a look at this:

$sum = 0;
$ordOfA = ord("a");
for ($x=0; $x<strlen($userString); $x++) {
  $thischar = substr($userString, $x, 1);
  $sum += ord($thischar)-$ordOfA+1;
}

at the end... $sum will have the addition you are looking for 😉

all the above will work good assuming that the user enters only lower case letters because as I said.. ord of a is 97 but ord of A is 65
so perhaps you might want to lower case the input string first, then work out the numbers

[cgraz]

Damn PHP functions! I spent a while playing around with this to find out there's already a function that does this. 🙁

Anyways, here's what I came up with. Altexis' method is MUCH shorter and easier, but if I don't post what I came up with, I won't be happy . . .

<?

// create array from alphabet
$alphabet = array('a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k', 'l', 'm', 'n', 'o', 'p', 'q', 'r', 's', 't', 'u', 'v', 'w', 'x', 'y', 'z');

// user string
$user_string = "CaKe";

// convert that string to lowercase
$user_string = strtolower($user_string);

// define starting sum
$sum = "0";

// define starting value for $thischar
$thischar = "";

// get each letter seperate then add \n at end so we can layer convert to array
for ($x=0; $x < strlen($user_string); $x++) { 
   $thischar .= substr($user_string, $x, 1) . "\n"; 
}

// put in array
$thischar = explode("\n", $thischar);

// check array $thischar against array $alphabet.
// if the particular letter matches a letter in the alphabet
// create a new sum
for ($k=0; $k < (count($thischar) - 1); $k++) {

  for ($i=0; $i < count($alphabet); $i++) {

     if ($thischar[$k] == $alphabet[$i]) {
        $sum = $sum + ($i + 1);
     } 


  }

}

// print sum
echo "Sum: " . $sum;
?>

Cgraz

[Code_guy]

Ok...
first of all you can use asci values to get numeric values for letters.

it goes from capital A = 65 to capital Z = 90
small a = 95 to small z = 122;

if you want to ignore case you can use 'strtoupper';

if you want A to be 1 you subtract 64

so here is a function that will take a string and output
a string made up of the numbers correponding to each letter:

function convertString($string){
	$string = strtoupper($string);
	$output = "";
	for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($string); $i++) {
		$output .= ord($string{$i}) - 64;
	}
	return $output;
}

so echo convertString('cake') would output 31115.

you might want to add a dilimiter:
$output .= ord($string{$i}) - 64 . " ";

here is a function that would add the numbers:

function addStringNumbers($string){
	$string = strtoupper($string);
	$output = 0;
	for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($string); $i++) {
		$output += ord($string{$i}) - 64;
	}
	return $output;
}

here echo addStringNumbers('cake') would output 20.

[mbhcool]

Hey! .. umm I tryed the long code thing and it worked but only till 10 ...

See the problem is I'm not using english letters in my project I just put them for easy example preview ... and the method I was using is as follows ::

Ç=1
È=2
Ì=3
... till 10, then ::
ß=20
á=30
...till 100, then it goes till 900, then the last letter is assigned to 1000.

So as you can see each way won't work :/

But thanks for your help guys!

[Code_guy]

Ok,
in your code you use:
for ($i=0; $i < count($alphabet); $i++) {
to loop through the alphabet and use ($i + 1) as the value for each letter.

If I understand you, the eleventh letter should have a value of 20, the 12th should be 30 etc.. ($i + 1) in your code would be give 11 and 12, respectively.

I think if you drop this code into yours, it will give you the result you are looking for:

$exp=0;
$j=0;
for ($i=0; $i < count($alphabet); $i++) {
	if ($j++ < 9) {
		$exp++;
		$j=2;
	}
	if ($thischar[$k] == $alphabet[$i]) {
		$sum = $sum + ($j * pow(10,$exp));
	}
}

although it would work faster if you would create an associative array first and then used it to find the values for each letter:

$exp=0;
$j=0;
for ($i=0; $i < count($alphabet); $i++) {
	if ($j++ > 9) {
		$exp++;
		$j=2;
	}
	$alph2val[$alphabet[$i]] = $j * pow(10,$exp);
}

for ($k=0; $k < strlen($user_string); $k++) {
	if (isset($alph2val[$user_string{$k}])) $sum += $alph2val[$user_string{$k}];
}