switch help

narked

I am trying to build a switch for a string, but instead of comparing the exact string value I want to do different cases depending on if the variable starts with x letter.

Example:

switch ($myString)
case "(if it starts with a)":
echo "this word starts with letter A"
break;

is it possible to do something like this??

NogDog

$firstLetter = strtoupper($myString[0]);
switch($firstLetter)
{
   case 'A':
      // do something
      break;
   case 'B':
      // etc....
      break;
   default:
}

narked

Ok, that would work for the example I posted, but I think what I was trying to ask is: is there any way to use a sintax to do something like this:

case "%arg" // this would apply to all strings that end with "arg"

case "%arg%" // this will apply to all strings that contain the word "arg" in it

case "a%" // this would apply to all words that start with "a"

NogDog

I think this would work, but I've not tested it:

switch(TRUE)
{
   case(preg_match('/txt?/', $myString) === TRUE):
      echo "The string ends in 'txt'";
      break;
}

Installer

I think you're trying to fit the problem to the solution instead of the other way around. Use "if...elseif...else" to do this.

NogDog

Installer wrote:
I think you're trying to fit the problem to the solution instead of the other way around. Use "if...elseif...else" to do this.

Yeah, without knowing what the actual functional requirements are, we may well be taking the wrong path here.

narked

Ok, here's the actual problem:

1) I get the referrer path of a php script.

2) based on the referrer path I do an action

3) I used a switch to define actions from different paths, i.e.
www.example.com/a.php -> do this
www.example.com/b.php -> do that

THE PROBLEM WAS: that if I had a page like www.example.com/a.php?value=1, then the path was not recognized.

MY SOLUTION WAS:
case(strpos($referrer, 'http://www.example.com/a.php')) :
// action
break;

I dont know if that was the smartes way to do it but at least it is working. any feedback on my solution?

NogDog

I might be inclined to clean up $referrer with:

$referrer = array_shift(explode('?', $referrer));

Then your cases would just be the basic URI strings. I would think this would mean a little less processing, especially if you have a lot of cases and each one has to do a strpos() until a match is found.