issue with outputting a text file..please help

[zoomzoom9]

i'm creating code where i am trying to open a text file, read each line, check to see if each line is a palindrome or not and then create a new text file displaying the original line of text as well as saying if it is a palindrome or not....here is my code. what am i doing wrong? please help!

 

 

<?php

 

$out = fopen('results.txt', 'a');

 

foreach (file('testPhrases.txt') as $line) {

$line = trim(str_replace('/[^a-zA-Z]+/', ' ', '', $line));

$reverse = strrev($line);

 

if ($line == $reverse){

echo fwrite($out, $line . "This is a palindrome.\n");

}

else{

echo fwrite($out, $line . "This is not a palindrome.\n");

}

}

?>

[Ch0cu3r]

First str_replace does not take a regex pattern for the first  (search) argument and the subject string should be the third argument. You should use preg_replace instead for regex

$line = trim(preg_replace('/[^a-zA-Z]+/', ' ', $line));

Second you are echo'ing the result of fwrite, which is the number of bytes written. Not the text that was written. Change the if/else to

	$line .= " - This is " . (($line == $reverse) ? 'a' : 'not a') ." palindrome.\n"; // append this to current line
	echo "$line<br/>";
	fwrite($out, $line);

Edited January 27, 2014 by Ch0cu3r

[zoomzoom9]

thanks for the help. i see what i was doing wrong now so thanks for the explanation too

 

it seems to be determining what is or is not a drome, but it is saying phrases aren't when they are. i think this is my line involving capital letters, punctuation and spaces. ('/[^a-zA-Z]+/', ' ', $line) did i not code that part right?

[Ch0cu3r]

/[^a-zA-Z]+/ is replacing any non letter character into a space, removing all punctuation within the line.

Edited January 27, 2014 by Ch0cu3r

[zoomzoom9]

ok so then how would i remove the punctuation and also remove the space so that a palindrome like \\ No trace; not one carton \\ would be recognized as a palindrome

[.josh]

perhaps a matter of case-sensitivity, need to strtolower $line ? If that doesn't work, then post some example lines from your file.

 

ok so then how would i remove the punctuation and also remove the space so that a palindrome like \\ No trace; not one carton \\ would be recognized as a palindrome

replace with '' instead of ' ' so that all non-alpha chars are stripped.

[.josh]

$line = strtolower(trim(preg_replace('/[^a-z]/i', '', $line)));

[zoomzoom9]

thats perfect! thank you so much for the help everyone