Letters Game Help

[thebiggreenie]

Hi guys,

I'm trying to make a letters game, whereby a user is given 9 random letters, and must try to form the longest valid word from those letters.

My problem is that I cannot create a code to validate that the letters in the user's guess are actually letters which they were given. If a user uses letters he was not given, or uses letters more than once (if they only appear once), then they haven't given a valid answer.

The letters which the user receives are entirely random, and make up one string, so

[code]$letters = "AIKNFOLAP";[/code]

as opposed to being 9 separate strings.

I hope someone can help.

- Ralph

[Orio]

I've got a solution for you, but it's very ugly... there must be a nicer way.
Anyway:
[code]$letters = strtolower("AIKNFOLAP"); //the random letters
$input=strtolower($_POST['answer']); //the string the user submitted
$letters_len=strlen($letters);
$input_len=strlen($input);
if($input_len>$letters_len){die("Error.");}; //some validation, but more validation needs to be done

$arr_letters=str_split($letters);
$arr_input=str_split($input);
$i=0;
while($i<$input_len){
if(in_array($arr_input[$i],$arr_letters)){
  $key=search_array($arr_input[$i],$arr_letters);
  $arr_letters[$key]="";
  $i++;
  }
else{die("Error");};
};
[/code]

As I said, it's ugly, but should work.

Orio.

[Barand]

(Needs PHP 5)

[code]
$letters = "AIKNFOLAP";

$reply = "apinkfoal";

// get lexical roots of both (ie letters in alpha order)

$arr1 = str_split($letters);
sort($arr1);
$arr2 = str_split(strtoupper($reply));
sort($arr2);

echo ($arr1 == $arr2) ? 'OK' : 'Not same letters';[/code]

PHP 4
[code]
$letters = "AIKNFOLAP";

$reply = "opinkfoal";

// get lexical roots of both (ie letters in alpha order)
for ($i=0,$k=strlen($letters); $i<$k; $i++)
$arr1[] = $letters{$i};
sort($arr1);
for ($i=0,$k=strlen($reply); $i<$k; $i++)
$arr2[] = strtoupper($reply{$i});
sort($arr2);

echo ($arr1 == $arr2) ? 'OK' : 'Not same letters';[/code]

EDIT: and add
[code]
$arr3 = array_diff($arr2, $arr1);
echo join(', ', $arr3), ' were not in the original set';
[/code]

[thebiggreenie]

Thanks Barand, but the idea is that users don't have to guess a nine-letter word, instead, they can have words of any length from 2-9 letters.

- Ralph

[Orio]

Mine works in that case.
See my post before Barand.

Orio.

[thebiggreenie]

Will do Orio. Where do I put the 'correct' and 'incorrect' bits?

- Ralph

[Orio]

The script will stop and echo "Error" if there was a problem. That means that you can continue your script right after the part I added, because it'll only continue to there if there was no error.

Just be sure you add some validation before my part :) Like- input isnt empty, only letters were submitted etc'.

Orio.

[thebiggreenie]

Ok.. what if I'm not running PHP5 :S

- Ralph

[Orio]

Add this at the top/bottom:

[code]if(!function_exists('str_split')){
   function str_split($string,$split_length=1){
       $count = strlen($string);  
       if($split_length < 1){
           return false;  
       } elseif($split_length > $count){
           return array($string);
       } else {
           $num = (int)ceil($count/$split_length);  
           $ret = array();  
           for($i=0;$i<$num;$i++){  
               $ret[] = substr($string,$i*$split_length,$split_length);  
           }  
           return $ret;
       }      
   }  
};[/code]


Orio.

[thebiggreenie]

search_array() is giving me problems... is it PHP5?

[Orio]

Woops! Change search_array to in_array :)

Orio.

[thebiggreenie]

Now one of the WHILEs is repeating in the script, when the guess uses correct letters

[Orio]

Final script:

[code]$letters = strtolower("AIKNFOLAP"); //the random letters
$input=strtolower($_POST['answer']); //the string the user submitted
$letters_len=strlen($letters);
$input_len=strlen($input);
if($input_len>$letters_len){die("Error.");}; //some validation, but more validation needs to be done

$arr_letters=str_split($letters);
$arr_input=str_split($input);
$i=0;
while($i<$input_len){
if(in_array($arr_input[$i],$arr_letters)){
  $key=array_search($arr_input[$i],$arr_letters);
  $arr_letters[$key]="";
  $i++;
  }
else{die("Error");};
};[/code]

[Barand]

This should work with PHP 4 or 5
[code]
$letters = "AIKNFOLAP";
for ($i=0,$k=strlen($letters); $i<$k; $i++) {
    $arr1[] = $letters{$i};
}

$test = array('apinkfoal', 'opinkfoal', 'apinkfool', 'apankfoal', 'knife',
       'polka', 'plain', 'koala', 'painful');

echo '<pre>';
printf('| %-12s | %s |%3s | %-12s | %-12s |%s', 'Reply','Size','OK','Unused','Illegal',"\n\n");
foreach ($test as $reply) {
    $tmp = $arr1;
    $arr3 = array();
    for ($i=0,$k=strlen($reply); $i<$k; $i++) {
         $c = strtoupper($reply[$i]);
         if (($p = array_search($c,$tmp))!== false)
             unset($tmp[$p]);
         else $arr3[] = $c;
    }
    printf('| %-12s | %3d  |%3s | %-12s | %-12s |%s',
        $reply, $k, count($arr3) ? '':'OK', join('',$tmp), join('', $arr3),"\n");
}
echo '</pre>';[/code]

[thebiggreenie]

Ok, I've got a code which checks a webpage with the word and validates it, but I get a 500 error code during fopen...