I have a php script with an integer variable that can equal 1 - 20. I want the variable to then change to a text string, depending on the number it was. I'm sure it has something to do with arrays, but have no real clue about them yet. Does anybody have any ideas?

 

e.g 1 is cat, 2 is dog, 3 is snail.

 

so if the variable was 1, it would be change to equal 'cat'.

 

Thanks in advance.

I have a php script with an integer variable that can equal 1 - 20. I want the variable to then change to a text string, depending on the number it was. I'm sure it has something to do with arrays, but have no real clue about them yet. Does anybody have any ideas?

 

e.g 1 is cat, 2 is dog, 3 is snail.

 

so if the variable was 1, it would be change to equal 'cat'.

 

Thanks in advance.

My link

 

Have a read through that and that will/should answer your question

 

Ben

You could try a switch:

 

switch($integer)
{
case 1:
$animal="cat";
break;

case 2:
$animal="dog"
break;
//and so on

default:
$animal="tapir";
}

Thanks guys, I've got it now. I'm a bit of a newbie to php so thanks for your help!

A switch is a bad method to use. Just use an associative array

$array = (
0 => 'cat',
1 => 'dog',
2 => 'owl',
3 => 'pig',
4 => 'cow'
);

echo $array[3]; // echos pig

Yeah I went for an array in the end, it seems to be working so far!

 

I went for something a bit like this:

$string = 1; //some integer
$array=array(1=>"Cat",2=>"Dog",3=>"Rabbit",4=>"Mouse");
$string = $array[$string]; //changed to text string

 

It's alright practice to put a variable in the [] right?

 

lh

It's alright practice to put a variable in the [] right?

Certainly is - otherwise iterating over the contents of an array would be rather tricky! The "traditional" way to do iteration uses a counter with a loop:

 

$arr_size = count($array);
for($i=0; $i<$arr_size; $i++) {
 $str = $array[$i];
}

That's just one example which uses a variable index - not necessarily the clearest way to iterate over the array, but it makes its point!

Certainly is - otherwise iterating over the contents of an array would be rather tricky! The "traditional" way to do iteration uses a counter with a loop:

$arr_size = count($array);for($i=0; $i<$arr_size; $i++) {  $str = $array[$i];}

That's just one example which uses a variable index - not necessarily the clearest way to iterate over the array, but it makes its point!

 

Hey, thanks a lot! I'm slowly finding my feet with this PHP stuff

Just a quick note. With your original array you show

$array=array(1=>"Cat",2=>"Dog",3=>"Rabbit",4=>"Mouse");

Since arrays work off numbers by default (incrementing by 1 each time) you could just use

$array=array(1=>"Cat","Dog","Rabbit""Mouse");

 

and Dog, Rabbit and Mouse will automatically have the values 2, 3 and 4 respectively

Hey thanks Jay! Nothing like optimised code.