breaking a string apart

[skdzines]

Can anyone tell me how to break a string apart so I can evaluate certain parts of it?

I am trying to take a string similar to this one "Y:3585460f5bc4f800:NYZS:093250860081744XF3LW 01:" and break it apart to evaluate the letters NYZS in the middle. I have the string stored in the variable $AVSCode like this:

$AVSCode="Y:3585460f5bc4f800:NYZS:093250860081744XF3LW 01:"; 

Then I am trying to evaluate it like this:

$Address=intval(substr($AVSCode,19,1));
$ZipCode=intval(substr($AVSCode,20,1));
$CVM=intval(substr($AVSCode,22,1));

if ($Address != "Y"){
	$error.="The Address provided does not match the information on file with your card issuer.<br>\n";
}
if ($ZipCode != "Y"){
	$error.="The Zip Code provided does not match the information on file with your card issuer.<br>\n";
}
if ($CVM == "N"){
	$error.="The code located on the back of the card provided does not match the information on file with your card issuer.<br>\n";
}

Is this correct?

I then want to pass the information to another page displaying any errors or pass to a different page if no errors like this:

//if any errors occur
if ($error){
	header("Location: http://www.whatnott.com/avsFailure.php");
	$error;
}else{
	header("Location: http://www.whatnott.com/avsPassed.php");
}

The avsFailure.php page should display the errors like this:

<?
if ($error) {//if there is any error message, print it to the screen
echo "<table width=550 align=\"center\" div align=\"center\"><br /><font color=red><b>The following problems occurred:</b><br /></font><font color=#000000 size=1>\n"; 
print ("$error"); 
}
?>

Is this correct?

Thanks for your help.

[LordShryku]

Is this correct?
.....you tell us. Does it work?

My suggestion, if the string will have the : delimeter all the time, would be to explode the string on that delimeter.

[Arc]

Yah, use explode. This creates an array by breaking up the string into seperate parts where the delimter occurs.

Your delimter would be ":".

So if you say

$MyArray=explode(":",$AVSCode);
Print $MyArray[2];

You should see the letters NYZS

[skdzines]

Thanks guys. Would I then need to use substr() to break down each part of NYZS to evaluate if they are Y's or not?

Basically, the first letter 'N' is for the address which needs to be a 'Y' or it throws an error. The second letter 'Y' is for the zip code which also needs to be a 'Y' or an error is thrown and so on.

Once everything is broken down it evaluates it like this:

if ($Address != "Y"){ 
    $error.="The Address provided does not match the information on file with your card issuer.<br>\n"; 
} 

Then it does this:

if ($error){ 
    header("Location: http://www.whatnott.com/avsFailure.php?error=$error"); 
    $error; 
}else{ 
    header("Location: http://www.whatnott.com/avsPassed.php"); 
}

Which brings me to another problem. It checks the four parts of the $AVSCode and if there is more than one error, it should pass all of them to the avsFailure.php page and display them. Problem is it is only displaying the first error and not the rest.

This is the code I'm using to display the errors:

<? 
if ($error) {//if there is any error message, print it to the screen 
echo "<table width=550 align=\"center\" div align=\"center\"><br /><font color=red><b>The following problems occurred:</b><br /></font><font color=#000000 size=1>\n";  

print ("$error");  

} 
?> 

It also shows the error in the URL which I don't want. I only want it to show www.whatnott.com/avsFailure.php and nothing else. How do I do that?

Thanks.

[dalecosp]

Yes, you could test [man]substr[/man]s of the array element to do error testing, much as per your example.

BTW, do we all get passes when you're done? :eek:

[skdzines]

Yes dalecosp, you all will pass. Thank you very much.

But now I need to know why it will only display one error on the avsFailure.php page even if there are actually three errors. It only displays the first one. Is there a different way to pass all errors?

Also, it diplays the error in the URL bar. I don't want it to do that. I only want it to display www.whatnott.com/avsFailure.php and not www.whatnott.com/avsFailure.php?error=The20%Address20%does20%not20%match20%yadda yadda yadda

Any ideas?

Thanks

[tekky]

instead of doing $error = "some error"

do

if ($error)
     $error .= " error #2 has occured";
else
     $error = "error has occured";

//before using header();
$error = urlencode($error);

and then... use urldecode() on $error before using it again....

[skdzines]

I guess I don't really understand what you are telling me tekky. Could you help me clarify?

Thanks

[tekky]

your \n is probably being interpretted as something it shouldnt.... hence you need to URLENCODE() your message so when its included in the URL it translate ALL the special characters that trouble browsers with URLS into harmless special codes... like a space is %20... etc etc then at the recieving page, URLDECODE() to translate that information back into READABLE text for display on the page....

HTH

[skdzines]

Thanks tekky, got it! Now one more question. Do you know of a way to take the error message (variable being passed) out of the url so it only displays the page url in the address bar and not the error with it?

Basically it shows this now:
http://www.whatnott.com/avsFailure.php?error=The+Address+provided+does+not+match+the+information+on+file.........

But I only want it to show this:
http://www.whatnott.com/avsFailure.php

Thanks again for your help.

[tekky]

use a form with method=post and javascript to trigger the submit.... OR use session variables.....