Switch Issues

russmichell

Hi everyone:

I was looking at the user contributed notes on uk.php.net and found that I could use several case clauses inside a switch statement. However; I'm getting strange results with it in that the returned country in these cases is returned twice??

The idea is that for every 2/3 character code per country (there may be several for each country) the appropriate long-name is returned for list-display purposes:

function LongCountry($string)
{
	switch ($string)
	{
		case "AT":
			return "Austria";
			break;
		//Both country 'codes' exist in the DB
		case ("SA"):
		case ("ZA"):
			return "South Africa";
			break;
		//Both country 'codes' exist in the DB
		case ("ES"):
		case ("Spa"):
			return "Spain";
			break;
                 }
}

Ideally something like this would do it - but this stops PHP at the point it encounters the "||" and continues to display the long country title for as many times as there exist countries:

switch($string)
{
case ("SA" || "ZA")
return "South Africa";
break;
}

Can anyone see a way around this? I'm on PHP4.1.x on Linux/Apache.

Thanks a lot.

PHPThorsten

I tested your function with PHP 4.0.6 + 4.3.0 and in both cases it returns the long name just one time.

sure you don't call it twice anywhere?

russmichell

Thanks for the reply:

I'm calling the function thus:

while($row = mysql_fetch_object($query)) 
{
	echo "<li><a href='display_indorgs.php?Country=$row->Country'>".longCountry($row->Country)."</a></li>";
}

Curious that only the two countries that have multiple codes (Spain and South Africa) are repeated. They seem to be displayed in the order that their code's appear:

Spain as "ES" appears right-after "DK" (For Denmark)
Spain as "Spa" appears right after "SE" (For Sweden)
South Africa as "SA" appears right after "PT" (For Portugal)
South Africa as "ZA" appears right after "US" (For America)

what the??😕

PHPThorsten

What happens when you call your function out of the loop?

echo longCountry("Esp");

Is this working correctly?

What is given out twice in your script? The long name of the countra or the whole line
<li><a href='display_indorgs.php?Country=$row->Country'>".longCountry($row->Country)."</a></li>
?

When the whole line there may be 2 rows in the DB matching to it?!

xblue

I think your function works perfectly returning one country name whenever it is called, but since you call it for every abbreviation and there are 2 for some countries, these are repeated, once with a link "...?Country=SA", once with "...?Country=ZA", may that be the case?

If so, I don't think there is an easy way to filter them with your current design, unless perhaps storing the full names in the DB as well and using DISTINCT or GROUP BY in your query.

russmichell

Hi:

1). In the DB there are:

short entries ("ES" and "Spa") for "Spain".
short entries ("SA" and "ZA") for "South Africa"

2). I query the DB using a DISTINCT clause and the results are stored in an object thus:

$row = mysql_fetch_object($query)

3). I iterate the no. times there exist distinct short country codes in the DB and echo to the page via my longCountry() function:

function longCountry2($string)
{
	switch ($string)
	{
		case "AT":
			return "Austria";
			break;
		case "AU":
			return "Australia";
			break;
		case "BE":
			return "Belgium";
			break;
		case "CA":
			return "Canada";
			break;
		case "CH":
			return "Switzerland";
			break;
		case "CZ":
			return "Check Republic";
			break;
		case "DE":
			return "Germany";
			break;
		case "DK":
			return "Denmark";
			break;
		case "FI":
			return "Finland";
			break;
		case "FR":
			return "France";
			break;
		case "HK":
			return "Hong Kong";
			break;
		case "IN":
			return "India";
			break;
		case "IL":
			return "Israel";
			break;
		case "IT":
			return "Italy";
			break;
		case "JP":
			return "Japan";
			break;
		case "LU":
			return "Luxembourg";
			break;
		case "NL":
			return "Netherlands";
			break;
		case "NO":
			return "Norway";
			break;
		case "PO":
			return "Poland";
			break;
		case "PT":
			return "Portugal";
			break;
		case "IE":
			return "Republic of Ireland";
			break;
		//Both country 'codes' exist in the DB
		case ("SA"):
		case ("ZA"):
			return "South Africa";
			break;
		//Both country 'codes' exist in the DB
		case ("ES"):
		case ("Spa"):
			return "Spain";
			break;
		case "SE":
			return "Sweden";
			break;
		case "UK":
			return "United Kingdom";
			break;
		case "US":
			return "United States";
			break;
	}
}

<ul>";
while($row = mysql_fetch_object($query)) 
{
	echo "<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=$row->Country'>".longCountry($row->Country)."</a></li>";
}
echo "
</ul>

What gets displayed is this:

<ul>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=AT'>Austria</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=AU'>Australia</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=BE'>Belgium</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=CA'>Canada</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=CH'>Switzerland</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=CZ'>Check Republic</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=DE'>Germany</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=DK'>Denmark</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=ES'>Spain</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=FI'>Finland</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=FR'>France</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=HK'>Hong Kong</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=IE'>Republic of Ireland</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=IL'>Israel</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=IN'>India</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=IT'>Italy</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=JP'>Japan</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=LU'>Luxembourg</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=NL'>Netherlands</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=NO'>Norway</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=PO'>Poland</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=PT'>Portugal</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=SA'>South Africa</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=SE'>Sweden</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=Spa'>Spain</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=UK'>United Kingdom</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=US'>United States</a></li>
	<li><a href='display_by_country.php?Country=ZA'>South Africa</a></li>
</ul>

This is what leads me to think it might be a switch bug or something... actually using PHP4.1.2

urghhhhhh 😕 ....

xblue

no, it's not.

the problem is using distinct makes no sense this way. why would you expect it to return only one of "ES" or "Spa" and "SA" and "ZA"? After all, they are different, and there is nothing in the DB that indicates they actually mean the same, therefore both will be in your result set.