[Resolved] automatically add characters

robsgaming

I need to automatically add characters to inputted text.

for example if somebody types:

nintendo mario jump

I need the string to add + next to every word

so it will now be +nintendo +mario +jump

however, if there are other operators in front of the words, it WILL NOT add a plus sign

for example lets say somebody enters this phrase

+mario -jump

I dont want jump to have +-jump

this is kind of confusing and i'm probably doing this the wrong way. i'm messing around with boolean searches NOT FULLTEXT but boolean

i have to manually type in +mario +jump +nintendo if i want to search for all of those words

if i type mario jump nintendo i get totally different results because it searches for ANY of those words not ALL.

Any help is appreciated and thanks.

tbach2

this feels like a kludge...

Explode query on spaces
iterate through array, testing for operator at beginning of word
if true, do nothing; else prepend a plus to the word
[/list=1]
'Course, you might be able to do it quicker with one preg_replace...
(you'll have to double check the regex; I'm no regex guru... :rolleyes:
```
$pattern = "/(![-+]\w)/";
$replacement = "+$1";

preg_replace($pattern, $replacement, $string);
```

pete_bisby

$arrayText = explode(" ", $searchText);

for ($i=0; $i < sizeof($arrayText); $i++) {
  if (substr($arrayText[$i],0,1)!="-") {
    $arrayText[$i] = "+" . $arrayText[$i];
  }
}

$newText = implode(" ", $arrayText);

The explode() function converts your text string into an array, by looking for the spaces.

The for loop goes through the array and looks for the first character of each element, to see if it is a "-"; if it isn't, place a "+" at the beginning.

The implode function puts the array back into a string, separated with a space.

I haven't tested this, but it should work!

maxpup979

how bout a super nasty unreliable kludge...🙂
$newstring=str_replace(" "," +",$string);
$ns2=str_replace(" +-"," -",$newstring);

robsgaming

thanks for the help guys... the array loop is working the best so far...

pretty hard trying to set up your own search engine thing if you are a newbie. that's why i come to phpbuilder and get the great help i need. thanks again!