Need help with loops

rob76

I have just got started with loops and have some working code that I want to condense using a for loop. Basically, I am trying to rewrite this:

if (!$aaa1_1Q) { $aaa1_1Q=$aaa; }
if (!$bbb1_1Q) { $bbb1_1Q=$bbb; }
if (!$ccc1_1Q) { $ccc1_1Q=$ccc; }
if (!$ddd1_1Q) {$ddd1_1Q=$ddd;}

as this, but it just won't work

$var1 = array("$aaa","$bbb","$ccc","$ddd");
$var2 = array("$aaa1_1Q","$bbb1_1Q","$ccc1_1Q","$ddd1_1Q");

for ($i=0; $i<=3; $i++){

  if ( !$var2[$i] ) {   $var2[$i] = $var1[$i];  }
  }

Please could anyone offer any suggestions

Thanks
Rob

dp777

what error message are you getting?

chads2k2

Rob whats going on man? OK check this out ...

You cannot do this
$var1 = array("$aaa","$bbb","$ccc","$ddd");
It is going to be looking for variables. Hint would be the $ signs.
Why are you doing
if (!$aaa1_1Q) { $aaa1_1Q=$aaa; }
That just doesn't make sense. If you simply want to change $aaa1_1Q to $aaa. You need to either provide all the code so we can see if there is some values in $aaa, $bbb, $ccc, $ddd. Ya dig?

Just hit us back so we can figure something out k?

laserlight

You could try using variable variables:

$var_array = array("aaa", "bbb", "ccc", "ddd");
foreach ($var_array as $var) {
	if (!${$var . "1_1Q"})
		${$var . "1_1Q"} = $$var;
}

rob76

OK, Thanks

Rather than try and explain the application. You can see it working at [URL=http://]http://narva.co.uk/pages/prod1_1fr.php[/URL] There are about 20 similar pages on the site and it's like a shopping cart idea except it allows customers to select items and place them into a quote basket. I designed it several months ago with only a basic knowledge of PHP using arrays stored in cookies to pass the data between pages. The original code is very very long mainly because I new nothing about loops at the time and there are literally 100's of repetitive if() statements. As an exercise in PHP I am trying to redesign it with more efficient code. The first thing is I will use sessions instead of cookies so here is an example of my new code for the above page using the first 4 products only.

The sort of thing I want to do is eliminate the repeating lines eg. session_register() an the if() statements by putting all the elements $aaa, $aaa1_1Q, $bbb into an array and then loop through them.

//page prod1_1fr.php

session_start();
session_register('aaa1_1Q');
session_register('bbb1_1Q');
session_register('ccc1_1Q');
session_register('ddd1_1Q');

//check for previous values of $aaa1_1Q, $bbb1_1Q etc. and if they dont exist assign a value from form input

if(!$aaa1_1Q){$aaa1_1Q=$aaa;}
if(!$bbb1_1Q){$bbb1_1Q=$bbb;}
if(!$ccc1_1Q){$ccc1_1Q=$ccc;}
if(!$ddd1_1Q){$ddd1_1Q=$ddd;}
?>
<HTML>
<BODY>
<FORM action=<? "$PHP_SELF;" ?> method ="post">
<input name="aaa" type="text" value= "<? echo $aaa1_1Q; ?>">
<input name="bbb" type="text" value= "<? echo $bbb1_1Q; ?>">
<input name="ccc" type="text" value= "<? echo $ccc1_1Q; ?>">
<input name="ddd" type="text" value= "<? echo $ddd1_1Q; ?>">

</FORM

</BODY>
</HTML>

Any help or ideas would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Rob

rob76

PS. For some reason the link on this page doesn't work. You'll have to type it in manually.

Thanks
Rob

rob76

http://narva.co.uk/pages/prod1_1fr.php

laserlight

Actually, using loops will not make it any more efficient, it might even make it even more inefficient.
What it will do is reduce the physical length of the script, and perhaps make it easier to maintain.

Variable variables, as per example, could be used, though I would design using arrays instead of scalar variables, .e.g. use
$POST['one_1Q']['aaa']
instead of
$POST['aaa1_1Q'] and have to deal with variable variables.

rob76

Thanks for your help.
Rob