Advanced php

[jgetner]

Currently i'am trying to parse text into tokens for a front-end on a framework but i'am currently stuck on a while loop trying to read the next token till they stop being a char type. more or less.....

<?php

class Scanner
{
    // the current token
	private $token;
	// the evtual token type
	private $token_type;

// length of string source;
private $length;

// position of current reader context;
private $pos;

// constrctor: accepts current file name and gets contents as string
public function __construct($source)
{
	if(file_exists($source) && is_file($source))
	{
		return $this->fh = file_get_contents($source);
	}

	return(false);
}

// parses the string for string operations and toenizing.
public function Parse()
{
   $i;
   for($i = 0; $i < $this->length = strlen($this->fh); $i++)
   {
   	  $this->char = substr($this->fh , $i , 1);
	  return $this->token = $this->char;
   }
}

// Tokenize: suppose to turn current string into known 
// token type.  
public function Tokenize()
{
	if($this->isStringChar($this->token) == true)
	{
		$this->manageStringChar($this->token);
	}
}

// check if current token is a string char
public function isStringChar($char)
{
	if(preg_match('/[a-zA-Z]/' , $char))
	{
		return(true);
	}

	return(false);
}

// this function is suppose to match the nextchar
// and if the next char is a string char get chars till 
// they stop being string chars;
public function manageStringChar($chars)
{ 
   //get all chars aslong as the are a char between a-z A-Z
       // truely stuck here.....
   while($chars++ && false != preg_match('/[a-zA-Z]/' , $chars))
   {
   	 echo $chars;
   }
}


}

any idea's welcome but needs to be true parsing
and thanks for the help

[DaveRandom]

This code seems very disjointed to me. I can't quite work out what everything is supposed to be doing, please post a more descriptive summary of exactly what you would like to achieve, which methods will be called from outside the class, what you expect each method to do, and what you will be doing with your tokens.

A couple of things I have noticed...

• You are calling 'return' too much - notably in every iteration of the for loop in the Parse() method

• You are only passing one character to your manageStringChar() method, and seem to be treating it as if it was a whole string

• You seem to be attempting to mathematically increment a character at the beginning of each iteration of the while loop in the manageStringChar() method ($chars++).

I don't do OO that much so there may be bit's of syntax I don't get that cause the code to make more sense in a class, but I shall be annoyed if that is the case (with myself, for not knowing it).

[dewcansam]

dang dave if i have to agree with you one more time i am just going to defer to you all the time lol jk

[dewcansam]

I mean it all seams like overkill to me. Why not just use the is_string() other is_* functions or if you have to use gettype()

or:

$text = "some very long text here";
/* this will take the string and run through it char by char */
for($i = 0; $i < strlen($text); $i++ ){
  $char = substr($text, $i, 1);
  /* note: preg is NOT matching for whitespace */
  if(preg_match('/[a-zA-Z]/' , $char)){
    echo $char;
  }
}