Word Jumble

Pete_Bekisz

Mornin all 🙂

I'm trying to create a script that will take the letters from a word, scramble them, and then output the scrambled letters. I came up with this, but it's not working. Can anyone offer some insight?

$word = "good morning";
$a = array(); for($i=0;$i<strlen($word);$i++) $a[] = substr($word, $i, 1);
$a = shuffle($a);
echo $a[0];

ALSO >> Is it possible to have PHP preserve the spaces in between the words? I'm thinking this is possible by exploding the variable by the spaces, shuffling each of the words, and then outputting the scrambled words in the original order.

I have NO idea how to do this though :/

notionlogic

Something like this perhaps...?

$word = "good morning"; 
$wordlist = explode(" ", $word);
foreach ($wordlist as $item)
{ 
  $a = array(); 
  for($i=0;$i<strlen($item);$i++)  $a[] = substr($item, $i, 1); 
  $results[] = join(" ", shuffle($a) ); 
}
$allresults = join(" ", $results);
echo $allresults;

Pete_Bekisz

Originally posted by notionlogic
Something like this perhaps...?

$word = "good morning"; 
$wordlist = explode(" ", $word);
foreach ($wordlist as $item)
{ 
  $a = array(); 
  for($i=0;$i<strlen($item);$i++)  $a[] = substr($item, $i, 1); 
  $results[] = join(" ", shuffle($a) ); 
}
$allresults = join(" ", $results);
echo $allresults;

[/B]

Hmm.... I'm getting:

Warning: Bad arguments to join() in /home/www/polarcreek/downtown/petebwhat/scram/test.php on line 9

Weedpacket

Hm. Well, you can't stick shuffle() inside the join(), because shuffle() doesn't return anything for join() to work on. Similarly, setting any variable to the (nonexistent) return value of shuffle (i.e., $var = shuffle($array)😉 has the effect of deleting the variable (shuffle() returns a void, so that's what the variable becomes).

Lessee .... how might I do this...?

$a = 'A string of characters';
$chars = preg_split('//', $a, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);
shuffle($chars); // shuffle() doesn't return anything that needs assigning anywhere.
$shuffled_a = join('', $chars);

Pete_Bekisz

Originally posted by Weedpacket
Hm. Well, you can't stick shuffle() inside the join(), because shuffle() doesn't return anything for join() to work on. Similarly, setting any variable to the (nonexistent) return value of shuffle (i.e., $var = shuffle($array)😉 has the effect of deleting the variable (shuffle() returns a void, so that's what the variable becomes).

Lessee .... how might I do this...?
$a = 'A string of characters';
$chars = preg_split('//', $a, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);
shuffle($chars); // shuffle() doesn't return anything.
$shuffled_a = join('', $chars);
[/B]

Ah ha! That works! But -- how would I keep the words separate?

Weedpacket

Oh, right. I understand you to mean that you don't want the letters in one word to get scrambled up in the letters of another? leki siht instead of lite kish?

In that case your idea would probably be the best way to go: explode() the string on space and scramble each word separately; then join them back together again with spaces.

$words=explode(' ',$string);
foreach($words as $k=>$a)
{ scramble $a
   $words[$key]=$shuffled_a;
}
$shuffled_words=join(' ',$words);

For one extra level of shuffling, stick in a shuffle($words); just before that last line.