The easiest coding contest...

Merve

The rules are simple. You have to create a MadLib. It's that simple. Well, there are other things that you'll have to do...

Rules:

All entries submitted will be in a zip file. This zip file will contain one PHP file.
The file will submit to itself.
You must have basic censoring, censoring at least 5 bad words.
In the MadLib result, words that the user filled in will be underlined.
A copy of the result of the MadLib will be mailed to any e-mail address. Use it as a placeholder, because I will make that change. In this e-mail, the words the user filled in will still be underlined!
The user will be able to send a greeting to you along with their MadLib. Anything the user puts between braces (curly brackets) {} will be commented out and will not be sent in the e-mail.
A maximum length of 30 characters for each word and 1000 characters for the greeting.
In the greeting, the user can insert bold, underlined, italic, or striketrough text. The user can also change the colour of the font (black, white, red, blue, green, yellow, orange, lime) and the background (same colours as above). The user can choose between teletype, Times New Roman, and Verdana (or more fonts).
The following may not be used at all: foreach(), preg_replace(), nl2br().
The following may only be used once: die(), mail(), exit().
The following must be used: if(), switch(), elseif(), else.
You must get the date and time of day in the message.
Have fun!

I may change the rules slightly as submissions come in (if they do). Entries submitted before rule changes will not be disqualified or marked down.

You'll start with 90 points and work your way down for breaking rules. You can gain points for great ideas, appearance, or little extras.

Have lots of fun! And make fun of me!

Moonglobe

Merve posts a contest.......no one answers......

coincidence? or is everyone just tired of contests?

Jeb_

Pardon my aussie ignorance....but wth is a "madlib"?

BuzzLY

I'm a little bummed out seeing these contests pop up... by the time I announce a winner of the guestbook competition, and the winner comes up with a new contest, nobody will want to participate. Ah, well... I guess that's what I get for living in a free society.

bad76

Hi buzzLY,

is time for the response? Is this the judgement's day? Can i call all my Spawn for the armageddon? ah, not, that is another day... 😃

Merve

I guess there's just too many rules😃.

Chaotic_Reality

I think I should just give up on PHP if Im too dumb to even attempt this one. 🙁

BuzzLY

Nah, don't give up on PHP. His rules did not make this an easy contest. PHP is not a difficult scripting language to learn -- just don't expect to know everything overnight.

goldbug

Originally posted by BuzzLY
just don't expect to know everything overnight.

crap! now you tell me!?

Merve

Originally posted by goldbug
crap! now you tell me!?

LOL!!!

Oh yeah, all entries must be PHP 4.1.2 compatible...

Originally posted by Chaotic Reality
I think I should just give up on PHP if Im too dumb to even attempt this one. 🙁

The only reason I can do this is because I read a tutorial on mail(). Also, for those of you who don't know what a MadLib is, it's a word game. There's a short paragraph or two about a certain subject, and you leave out words. The player of the game is supposed to fill in those words, but the player doesn't know the story, he/she just knows the part of speech (noun, adjective, etc.) that the word he/she has to fill in is.

Example: The (plural noun) taste really good.
The dogs taste really good.
The speakers taste really good.
The losers taste really good.
The Paranoid/Evil Beavers of Death taste really good. (okay, that one's a joke)

So you see, it's not that hard, you just have to have the right resources...at least I'm not making you define constants!

Jeb_

...I still don't get it. What's the story about? Do we make up the story and rip out the nouns? Got a complete example anywhere?

[edit]
Ohhhh.....I get it. So it's kind of like one of those Javascript games where you get a pile of prompts, enter in friends, situations, names, people, things, adjectives, etc, and then it spits out a story using that information? (Except in this case we only use parts of speech)

Ahh...piece of cake 😃
[/edit]

Weedpacket

Huh, in the "e-mail, the words the user filled in will still be underlined". Since when did 7-bit ASCII do underlining?

Moonglobe

i think he means use HTML email 😉

tekky

gee whats this lounge coming to! now you're giving everyone answers to the contests?!?!? :p

Merve

Originally posted by Jeb.
...I still don't get it. What's the story about? Do we make up the story and rip out the nouns? Got a complete example anywhere?

:p

[edit]
Ohhhh.....I get it. So it's kind of like one of those Javascript games where you get a pile of prompts, enter in friends, situations, names, people, things, adjectives, etc, and then it spits out a story using that information? (Except in this case we only use parts of speech)

Ahh...piece of cake 😃
[/edit]

Here's an example without all the features listed in the rules.

Moonglobe

Originally posted by tekky
gee whats this lounge coming to! now you're giving everyone answers to the contests?!?!? :p

no, just helping a confused soul. LOL Weed!

moon

Jeb_

Originally posted by Merve
Here's an example without all the features listed in the rules.

Yep, just as I thought. Cheers Merve.

Merve

Originally posted by Moonglobe
no, just helping a confused soul. LOL Weed!

moon

I like when Weedpacket's confused because he's usually the one confusing us...

BuzzLY

Weedpacket is not confused. He is merely pointing out in his usual obtuse way that some email programs are text only, or that some people disable HTML in their email client. If you are sending email to them, his question is "how will you send underlined characters?"

I am sure Weedpacket is quite knowledgable about multipart message headers.

Merve

For those poor souls who do not like or do not use HTML email, you can put the word in All-caps, I believe that is possible...actually I know that is possible...doesn't matter too much anyway, does it?

What Merve thinks he knows is not always what he knows!