Check that word begins with specific letters

[simonjk]

Hi,

 

This is perhaps a bit of a simple one, but I am not sure whether it is a preg_match or strpos that I should use.

 

I have a form which is completed by the user. I want to check that in one of the form field entries the word they enter begins with E, L or B

 

I thought it might be built as a function, something like

function checkWord($word){

  return preg_match('/^E)(/^L)(/^B/'), $word) ? TRUE : FALSE;

 

Sorry if my attempt is laughable, can't seem to work this one out?

 

Any help appreciated.

 

Simon

[gristoi]

function checkWord($word)
{
$firstLetter = substr($word,0,1);
$requiredLetters = array('E','L','B');
    if(!in_array($firstLetter, $requiredLetters)){
      return false;
    }
return true;
}

hope that helps

[Barand]

or

 

function CheckWord($word)
{
    return in_array($word[0], array('E', 'L', 'B'));
}

echo CheckWord('Ewok') ? 'Yes' : 'No';    // Yes
echo CheckWord('word') ? 'Yes' : 'No';    // No

[spiderwell]

i prefer the second example only for the word ewok!!

[cyberRobot]

I would suggest adding strtoupper() to make the solution case insensitive:

 

<?php
function CheckWord($word)
{
    return in_array(strtoupper($word[0]), array('E', 'L', 'B'));
}

echo CheckWord('Ewok')   ? 'Yes' : 'No';    // Yes
echo CheckWord('word')   ? 'Yes' : 'No';    // No
echo CheckWord('enough') ? 'Yes' : 'No';    // Yes
?>

 

 

Unless you only want to match uppercase letters.

[Barand]

Assuming 'e' is is acceptable as well as 'E' ?

[simonjk]

Thanks guys, that's great.

 

What I would like to do is to return a message saying 'Location does not begin with E, B or L' if the conditions is true.

 

How can I do this?

 

Thanks again,

Simon

[Jessica]

You've already been given that code.

[cyberRobot]

Hint:

 

<?php
//...

echo CheckWord('Ewok')   ? 'Yes' : 'No';    // Yes
echo CheckWord('word')   ? 'Yes' : 'No';    // No

//...
?>

[simonjk]

Sorry guys, I perhaps should have been a little clearer with what I am trying to do.

 

The user will enter a code word ($icao) and this code is then to check that the word begins with an E, B or L.

 

I want to run the functions and if all is well post it to a variable.

 

This is the code I have (thanks to you). Does it look okay? I can't get it to work.

 

Thanks again,

Simon

 

 

 

function checkWord($icao)

    return in_array(strtoupper($icao[0]), array('E', 'L', 'B'), $ficao) ? TRUE : FALSE;

if(checkWord() != FALSE)

          {

        //If all is well we can  assign the value of POST field to a variable

                $userName = $_POST['userfcstarea'];

                }

        else

                {

        // if all is not well, we echo an error and exit the script

                echo 'Icao is invalid';

                exit();

                }

[Pikachu2000]

When posting code, enclose it within the forum's

 . . . 

BBCode tags.

[Jessica]

You said $icao and your code says $ficao

[simonjk]

Code should have been...

function checkWord($icao)

 

 

<code>

    return in_array(strtoupper($icao[0]), array('E', 'L', 'B'), $icao) ? TRUE : FALSE;

if(checkWord() != FALSE)

          {

        //If all is well we can  assign the value of POST field to a variable

                $userName = $_POST['userfcstarea'];

                }

        else

                {

        // if all is not well, we echo an error and exit the script

                echo 'Icao is invalid';

                exit();

                }

</code>

[Jessica]

You're not passing $icao to the function. Read about variable scope.

 

Also our code tags are [ code ] without the spaces. There's also a button.

[Barand]

function checkWord($icao)

    return in_array(strtoupper($icao[0]), array('E', 'L', 'B'), $ficao) ? TRUE : FALSE;

 

The body of a function definition needs to be enclosed in {..}s

in_array() returns true or false anyway so the ? TRUE : FALSE is redundant;

The third argument to in_array() is unnecessary (and if present should be true or false)