$search_by: last name? or phone number? or i.d. number?

Hiccup

My brain is fried right now so sorry if this is easy, but I have a form that takes in one input called $search_by. I want to have php determine if $search_by is:

a.) someone's last name
b.) someone's phone number
c.) someone's I.D. number

Is there any php function that can do this or help me do this?

I'm thinking of taking the $search_by string and walking through it one character at a time. If the character is all letters, it's a last name, if the characters are all numbers with a "-" as the fourth character, it's a phone number, if it's all numbers it's an I.D. number.

Help?

bodzan

...you can try if it is what you are looking for...

if(is_string($sort_by)){
//it is a character set
//do whatever
}
else if(is_numeric($sort_by)){
//it is all numeric (the other two cases)

if(ereg("([0-9]{3}) - "),$sort_by){
    //it  is a phone number with the fourth character a "-" sign
    //do whatever
}
else{
    //it is an I.D. number
    //do whatever
}

}

Hope it does a trick...

Kudose

You could save yourself some time and hassle if you just added this to your form

<select name="search_by">
<option selected>Last Name</option>
<option>Phone Number</option>
<option>ID</option>
</select>

Hiccup

Yeah I know I can use a select box, (that's the way I currently have it set up), however, I am implementing a flash header and want to be able to input anything into the text box and have php figure out what it is before searching the database...

I got it working as follows:

// Figure out what we're searching by here: pid, last name or phone number?
if(is_numeric($search_by)){
 $search_by = "pid";
}
else{
 if($dash = strpos($search_by, "-")){
  $sides = explode("-", $search_by);
   if(is_numeric($sides[0]) AND is_numeric($sides[1])){
    $search_by = "phone";
   }
   else{
    $search_by = "last_name";
   }
  }
  else{
   $search_by = "last_name";
  }
}

Not pretty but it works... thanks for the help and ideas! Bodzan I had an error on your ereg statement when I tried it. I suck with those things so I did it a different way.