Loops for fanatasy footie site!

hilln2

hey

Im a total newbie to PHP and scripting languages. I have a vague knowledge of the likes of Java/C++.
However im doing a project for school which involves setting up an online fantasy football site. One of the rules in this site, is that no team may have more than two players from the one team!! E.g. if I picked D. Seaman from Arsenal, I can only pick one more player from that team.

My question is...how do you enforce this rule in the registration of a team. How do I, using PHP, increment the arsenal register for example, when an arsenal player is picked, and then how do I get it to prevent users choosing more than 2 players from that team.

I have the registration page set up like a form where each user selects their team `from a drop-down menu, i.e. goalkeepers will only display players in that position and the user selects their player from the list.
The other problem I have is, how do you prevent someone choosing the same player twice!!? Do I just check to see if the same player_id is chosen more than once!?

I need urgent help from any scripting geniuses out there as Im really out of my league with this project and it must be finished by next week!!?

Thanking you in advance!

matto

Do I just check to see if the same player_id is chosen more than once!?

would be the easiest way.

if(in_array($chosen, $yourarrayofplayerids))
  $errormessage = "Player id $chosen is already in your team!";

as for the other problem, you could count the amount of players chosen for each soccer team, for example:

$team_count[0] = 0; // number of players from Arsenal
$team_count[1] = 0; // Milan
$team_count[2] = 0; // Bayern Muenchen

$teamforplayer = array(1=>0, 2=>0, 3=>1, 5=>2);
// associative array: id_player -> id_team (e.g. 0 for Arsenal)

...

// $chosen comes from user input and contains player_id
$chosen_team = $teamforplayer[$chosen)];

if($team_count[$chosen_team] >= 2)
{
 $error_message = "You have already chosen 2 players from team $chosen_team!";
}
else
{
  $team_count[$chosen_team]++;
 // ... processing/saving choice now
}

hilln2

Thanks very much for responding.

Just wanted to ask quick question:

How do I define the associative array, $teamforplayer?
example, how do I include the players ID?
With 500players in database, I presume there's a simple solution to retrieving their ID!? (Im not too good with arrays!) 🙁

Also when you say $chosen comes from user input and contains playerId....how!? Do I declare this in the registration form?

example code for registration form:

<SELECT
style="WIDTH: 250px" onchange="updateTotalCost ()"
size=1 name=player1 width="250"><OPTION value=0 selected>- Select Goalkeeper -</OPTION><OPTION
value=102> D Seaman (Ars) 4.0m</OPTION> <OPTION...etc

this carries on for all 11 players!

Do I just define $chosen the once and just recall it for every player....or am I wrong!?

also, finally.....do I attach the if(team_count) under all 11 options?
i.e. under player1, then also player2...etc!!

thanx again