[RESOLVED] Counter doesn't increment correctly

Pippa

I'm a beginner in PHP and I've set up a test quiz in PHP. Below is the code for the html quiz:-

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" 
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
 <title></title>
 <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
</head>
<body>
<form method="POST" action="quizStore2.php">
<p>Please answer the following questions to take part in this quiz</p>
<fieldset>
<legend>Quiz</legend>

<ol>
<li>
Which web server software is thought to run over 65% of the world's websites?
<p><input type="radio" name="Q1" id="a1" value="Apache" /><label for="a1">Apache</label></p>
<p><input type="radio" name="Q1" id="b1" value="IIS" /><label for="b1">Microsoft IIS</label></p>
<p><input type="radio" name="Q1" id="c1" value="NCSA" /><label for="c1">NCSA</label></p>
<p><input type="radio" name="Q1" id="d1" value="IBM" /><label for="d1">IBM HTTP Server</label></p>
</li>

<li>
Which two of the following web standards are primarily co-ordinated by the W3C?
  <p><input type="checkbox" name="Q2[]" id="a2" value="HTML" /><label for="a2">HTML</label></p>
<p><input type="checkbox" name="Q2[]" id="b2" value="ECMA" /><label for="b2">ECMAScript</label></p>
<p><input type="checkbox" name="Q2[]" id="c2" value="WML" /><label for="c2">WML</label></p>
<p><input type="checkbox" name="Q2[]" id="d2" value="DOM" /><label for="d2">DOM</label></p>
</li>





<li>Which of the following is not a type of CSS positioning?
<p>
<select name="Q3">
  <option value="">Choose one</option>
  <option value="Absolute">Absolute</option>
  <option value="Static">Static</option>
  <option value="Flexible">Flexible</option>
  <option value="Fixed">Fixed</option>
</select>
</p>
</li>


<li>Which two of the following are block-level HTML elements?
<p>
<select name="Q4[]" multiple="multiple">
  <option value="EM">EM</option>
  <option value="H1">H1</option>
  <option value="IMG">IMG</option>
  <option value="DIV">DIV</option>
</select>
</p>
</li>
</ol>

</fieldset>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<fieldset>
<legend>Your Details</legend>

<p>Your Name: <input type="text" name="userName" /></p>
<p>Email Address: <input type="text" name="userEmail" /></p>

</fieldset>
<p><input type="submit" value="Submit" /> or <input type="reset" value="Reset" /></p>


</form>

</body>
</html>

and here is the PHP code:-

<?php
$counter=0;
$thisName=$_POST['userName'];
$thisEmail=$_POST['userEmail'];
$webSoft=$_POST['Q1'];
$webStand=implode('',$_POST['Q2']);
$webCSS=$_POST['Q3'];
$blockCSS=$_POST['Q4'];

?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>

</head>

<body>
<?php
        showFormInput();


?>

</body>

</html>

<?php
function showFormInput()
{
global $webSoft, $webStand, $webCSS, $blockCSS, $thisName, $thisEmail, $counter;

Print <<<END
                <h2>Your Response</h2>
                <p>Your name: <b>$thisName</b></p>
                <p>Your email: <b>$thisEmail</b></p>
                <p>Your answers: Q1:<b>$webSoft</b><br />
                                                 Q2:<b>$webStand</b><br />
                                         Q3:<b>$webCSS</b><br />
                                             Q4:<b>$blockCSS</b><br />          

                </p>
                <hr />

END;
//Qu1
if ($webSoft=="Apache") $counter++;

//Qu2   

$qTwo = array("H1","WML");
        for($i=0;$i<sizeof($qTwo);$i++)
                $counter++;

//Qu3           

if ($webCSS=="Flexible") $counter++;

//Qu4   

//$arr=array("H1","DIV")
//for($i=0;$i<sizeof($arr);$i++)
//if(substr_count($blockcss, $arr[$i])) $counter++;

            echo $counter." ";


}
?>

The output for the quiz choices works OK, but I'm having problems getting the counter to increment correctly for Q2. If I get this to work, then Q4 will work. Qu1 is below:

if ($webSoft=="Apache") $counter++;

and Qu3

if ($webCSS=="Flexible") $counter++;

work fine and if the right answer is selected, the $counter is incremented correctly. I'm stuck on Qu2 which requires the user to make two correct choices and then the counter is incremented for each correct answer

$qTwo = array("H1","WML");
        for($i=0;$i<sizeof($qTwo);$i++)
                $counter++;

What's happening is that the counter is incremented twice, irrespective of whether a selection is made or whether it is the correct answer. If someone could help, I would appreciate it.

Many thanks

laserlight

What's happening is that the counter is incremented twice, irrespective of whether a selection is made or whether it is the correct answer.

Where's the if statement? 😉

Pippa

That's the problem. I guess that there should be an 'if' statement at the end of this code, but I'm not sure how it should be done:-

$qTwo = array("H1","WML");
        for($i=0;$i<sizeof($qTwo);$i++)
                $counter++;

Thanks

laserlight

Well, it depends: how is the user going to select those two answers in the first place? It looks like they are in an array that you imploded - instead of imploding, you could use [man]in_array/man to see if the answers are in the correct answer array.

Pippa

So, to do that, I assume that I would need to change

$webStand=implode('',$_POST['Q2']);

$webStand = $_POST['Q2'];

I guess that I'd then use in_array in the if statement. How would I do that?

laserlight

On second thought, [man]array_intersect/man would be better. The idea would be to count those answers provided that are correct:

$qTwo = array("H1", "WML");
$count += count(array_intersect($webStand, $qTwo));

array_intersect($webStand, $qTwo) returns an array of answers from $webStand that match with the correct answers from $qTwo. count(), which is synonymous with sizeof(), counts this array.

laserlight

On second thought, [man]array_intersect/man would be better. The idea would be to count those answers provuded that are correct:

$qTwo = array("H1", "WML");
$count += count(array_intersect($webStand, $qTwo));

array_intersect($webStand, $qTwo) returns an array of answers from $webStand that match with the correct answers from $qTwo. count(), which is synonymous with sizeof(), counts this array.

Pippa

I used

$qTwo = array("HTML", "WML");
$counter += count(array_intersect($webStand, $qTwo));

as you suggested and the counter didn't increment.

I left the array imploded as below

$webStand=implode('',$_POST['Q2']);

but I also tried

$webStand = $_POST['Q2'];

The latter didn't work, as the output for Q2 showed, 'Array', instead of 'HTML WML' as when I used the imploded version.

Thanks

Pippa

OK, I've managed to fix it. The PHP code is below:-

<?php
$counter=0;
$thisName=$_POST['userName'];
$thisEmail=$_POST['userEmail'];
$webSoft=$_POST['Q1'];
$webStand=$_POST['Q2'];
$webCSS=$_POST['Q3'];
$blockCSS=$_POST['Q4'];

?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>

</head>

<body>
<?php
        showFormInput();


?>

</body>

</html>

<?php
function checkforvalues($needles, $haystack) {
	$count=0;
	foreach($needles as $nkey => $nvalue)
		foreach($haystack as $hkey => $hvalue)
			if($nvalue===$hvalue)$count++;
	return $count;
}

function showFormInput()
{
global $webSoft, $webStand, $webCSS, $blockCSS, $thisName, $thisEmail, $counter;


//Qu1
if ($webSoft=="Apache") $counter++;

//Q2
$counter+=checkforvalues(array('HTML','WML'),$webStand);


//Qu3           

if ($webCSS=="Flexible") $counter++;

//Qu4

$counter+=checkforvalues(array('H1','DIV'),$blockCSS);

$webStand=implode(', ', $webStand);
$blockCSS=implode(', ',$blockCSS);
Print <<<END
                <h2>Your Response</h2>
                <p>Your name: <b>$thisName</b></p>
                <p>Your email: <b>$thisEmail</b></p>
                <p>Your answers:
				Q1:<b>$webSoft</b><br />
				Q2:<b>$webStand</b><br />
                Q3:<b>$webCSS</b><br />
                Q4:<b>$blockCSS</b><br />          

                </p>
                <hr />

END;
                echo $counter;


}
?>

I used the 'foreach' cocnstruct within a function to loop through and check the values of $webStand.

Thanks for your help.

laserlight

as you suggested and the counter didn't increment.

I left the array imploded as below

You used my suggestion incorrectly. It works with an array, not a string created by imploding an array.

The latter didn't work, as the output for Q2 showed, 'Array', instead of 'HTML WML' as when I used the imploded version.

When you attempt to print an array like that, it shows "Array". There is nothing wrong. Rather, if you want to print an array, you have to iterate over its contents, e.g., by using implode().

I used the 'foreach' cocnstruct within a function to loop through and check the values of $webStand.

If you want to do it that way, then you should use in_array(), like this:

function checkforvalues($needles, $haystack) {
    $count = 0;
    foreach ($haystack as $hvalue)
        if (in_array($hvalue, $needles))
            ++$count;
    return $count;
}

Pippa

Thank you very much for your help. I will have a good look at what you advised later on, as unfortunately I don't have time now.