Simple Conditional Please Help!!!

padawanelkin

I am trying to do the following conditional in PHP (I have written it in ColdFusion before, and am new to PHP):

<cfif isdefined("url.SOMETHING")>SHOW / OUTPUT SOMETHING

<cfelse>OUTPUT NOTHING

</cfif>

Basically, I will pass a variable in a link, i.e. <a href="http://www.something.com?something=something>Something</a>, then, I want to say if the variable something equals something, output the text "something", but, if the variable doesn't equal something, output nothing. Additionally, I would like for the code to also be able to find "something1", in case the url varies.

Can anyone please help! I am stuck on this problem for my personal site! Conditionals should be simple for you PHP Gurus, but it's hard for me, because I usually use coldfusion, and have recently moved to PHP.

Elkin

bpat1434

The CF code isn't that much different from PHP:

(These are assuming the url is this:http://www.domain.com/index.php?something=something)

<?php

$something = $_GET['something'];

if($something == 'something')
{
    echo 'something';
}
else
{
    echo 'nothing';
}

?>

Additionaly, if you need to do more than one if() you can form it like this:

<?php
$something = $_GET['something'];

if($something == 'something'){ echo 'something'; }
elseif($something=='something1'){ echo 'something1'; }
elseif($something == 'something2'){ echo 'something2'; }
else{ echo 'nothing'; }

?>

But, if you get to lots of if()elseif()elseif()elseif()'s, then you may need to think about a switch():

<?php
$something = $_GET['something'];

switch($something)
{
    case 'something':
        echo 'something';
        break;

case 'something1':
    echo 'something else';
    break;

case 'something2':
    echo 'another something';
    break;

default:
    echo 'nothing';
    break;
}

?>

~Brett

padawanelkin

Hi Brett,

Thank you for your response, I did get that far, in terms of the code that you wrote, however, I need it to read the current url, and the code you provided doesn't do this. I would like for the code to read the url, perhaps I should be more clear and write pseudo code.

1) Look at the url of the current page.

2) If the current page's url has something in the string, i.e. http://www.something.com/something.php?something=something, then output the content "Something", otherwise, show / output the content "Nothing".

3) Also, if the url is http://www.something.com/something.php?something1=something, then still output the content "Something", otherwise, show / output the content "Nothing".

I would truly appreciate any help my man!

bpat1434

<?php
foreach($_GET as $var => $val)
{
    if($val == 'something')
    {
        echo 'Something Found!!';
    }
    else
    {
        echo 'Nothing!!';
    }
}
?>

~Brett

padawanelkin

IT WORKED! I used your switch technique, it is just like it works in ColdFusion! I wish I could repay you in some way, but I suck in PHP...hey, if you ever need any help in ColdFusion, drop me a line in the forums!

You are the man!

BEST,
E.

bpat1434

Glad to hear it worked. Don't forget to mark this thread resolved.

Thread Tools --> Mark Thread Resolved

~Brett

padawanelkin

Darn Brett, this thing actually isn't resolved, I have been struggling for two days on the issue, what if "something" is not defined. I.e. what if there is no "something=something" appended to the end of the url...that is a case that I haven't been able to program for...and I tried to research Google extensively so as not to bug you and couldn't find an answer. Help!

bpat1434

Add a few lines outside the switch:

if(!empty($GET['something']) || isset($GET['something']))
{
$something = $_GET['something'];
}
else
{
$something = default;
}

~Brett

padawanelkin

Can anyone help! Please! My buddy Brett has been helping me way too much already...I still haven't found the resolution, because I am a php newbie!

What I would like to do, ultimately, is set up this page:
http://www.bpatterson.net/padawanelkin.php

In another language...i.e. -
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=en_es&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bpatterson.net%2Fpadawanelkin.php

However, when the user is on the other language page, I want a link to be visible to the original page that says "English"...when the user is on the regular page (http://www.bpatterson.net/padawanelkin.php), I want the link to say "Other Language"...i.e. "Spanish"...I want the user to be able to toggle between English and another language....

To do this, I need to be able to detect what my current url is...so, I have to be able to see the http://babelfish.altavista.com...

I know that in ColdFusion, I can use an isdefined conditional to say something like, if url.string containts babelfish, then do X. In php, I am having trouble knowing exactly what my current URL is...if you notice the page that my buddy Brett set up, when you view it through altavista in Spanish (http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=en_es&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bpatterson.net%2Fpadawanelkin.php), all of the variables remain the same!

Please HELP!

This is for my personal site, and it is killing me that I don't know how to do this!

Thanks,
E.

laserlight

Try something along the lines of:
$SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] . $SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME']

padawanelkin

I tried that already and those two (SERVER_NAME and SCRIPT_NAME) didn't work, that is in the file that Brett set up for me...http://www.bpatterson.net/padawanelkin.php. That doesn't work, because what I need is the actual url in the address bar, which would have the text "babelfish" in it. I did try tons of different ways, and I tried to look online and look through the php manual, but I can't figure this out.

bpat1434

I have updated the variables test. So you can see exactly what Laser said to do. Unfortunately there is no joy in that method.

~Brett

bpat1434

Well, this is deserving of a double post, so I'll delete my above post.....

I looked at the returned results, and I found only a slight difference. In the translated version they use a port of type XXXXX, where as if accessed locally, it is XXXX. So by seeing if the strlen of $_SERVER['REMOTE_PORT'] is greater than 4, you can MOST LIKELY figure it has been tranaslated.

Feel free to try it out now:
Padawanelkin.php - English
Padawanelkin.php - Spanish

Click on the flags, and you'll see they change as well as the language. This isn't 100% full-proof. It's a temporary fix, but it works. Just thought I'd report it.

Well... it half works. It detects if you have it in english when you first arrive. If you follow the link to babbelfish, it keeps saying it's spanish. So it's a step in the right direction.

Okay, so I figured out that problem. When Babelfish parses your site, it takes all links and wants to translate them. So the only way to do it would be to send your entire site through babelfish, it seems. Since every link I create in English gets sent through the translator.

~Brett