file / string reading

adamfrommass

I am trying to read from a file and then based on the single word in the file display an image. I am pretty new to PHP so getting a little caught up in how to do this but I think I know what to do, just don't know exactly how the syntax works. Can anyone help?

this is what I want to do:

open file:file.txt
read string from file
change case of string to uppercase with strtoupper() to make sure there is always a consistant string
use a switch statement to display an image based on the word in the file. IE if string = RED display red.gif if string equals GREEN display green.gif.

Any help you can give would be greatly apreciated.

Thanks,
Adam

lilleman

You do not have to use a switch to do this, you can just put the value from the file into a variable and use it to print the image. Try this:

<?php

// read in the string
$string = file_get_contents('file.txt');

// change to lowercase
$color = strToLower($string);

// print the image
echo "<img src=\"$color.gif\" border=\"0\" />";

?>

adamfrommass

That's great logic, but what about if there is an unknown string for some reason in that text file like if it is corrupt? such as for some reason the file says re instead of red? so it would try to display re.gif.

Adam

lilleman

Well, you could create an array with the allowed colors and make a little check if the color from the file is correct.

<?php

// read in the string
$string = file_get_contents('file.txt');

// change to lowercase
$color = strToLower($string);

// the allowed colors
$colors = array('green', 'red', 'blue');

// is the color correct?
$color = in_array($color, $colors) ? $color : 'red';

// print the image
echo "<img src=\"$color.gif\" border=\"0\" />";

?>

If the color is invalid, the red one will be shown.

adamfrommass

lilleman,

Thanks! that was actually very elegant much more so that my original design. That worked very well.

Adam