Arrays, awful unique username format - help required in forming them please!

[ReyC]

Background:

I'm very much a php noob, but am a very good bodger of most languages/systems...

I'm currently attempting an import of all our students into our Moodle setup from SIMS.net via a very bodged up version of David Willingtons script.  The users are authenticated via AD, and as such I needed to be able to make up the usernames in the script from what SIMS has provided.

 

The format we have for users is:      <registration group>-<firstname>     EG.  jy-james

 

Which would be fine, except for those cases where we have multiple students with the same first name in the same form (and it seems we have a lot). 

In these cases, the username format for all affected users is: <registration group>-<firstname><initial of surname>

The data I'm working with includes multiple copies of a username, one copy for each class or subject he/she is involved with.

 

What do I need?

To be able to implement a check which is able to detect duplicate usernames and apply the "fixed" format of appending the initial of the students surname.

 

Suggestions very very welcome!  I'm currently looking at running loops to go thru all usernames and compare all surnames but this seems unwieldy and very basic, and I'm wondering if there might be some clever php god who might know of some array functions/tweaks that would make this a lot easier/neater...

 

Rey

 

A very small example of the data held is given below just in case that helps.

Username Surname FirstName Class    Subject

je-arron bulldog Arron 10C/Bi1 Biology

je-arron bulldog Arron 10E/Eg1 Engine

je-arron bulldog Arron 10B/Bi1 Biology

je-arron bulldog Arron 10X/Pe4 P. E.

je-arron bulldog Arron 10E/Eg1 Engine

je-arron bulldog Arron 10A/Ph1 Physics

je-arron bulldog Arron 10X/Se4 PSE.

je-arron bulldog Arron 10B/Ch1 Chemistry

je-arron bulldog Arron 10C/Ch1 Chemistry

je-arron bulldog Arron 10F/It1 I.T.

je-arron bulldog Arron 10F/It1 I.T.

je-arron bulldog Arron 10X/En3 English

je-arron bulldog Arron 10X3/Ma Maths

je-arron bulldog Arron 10F/It1 I.T.

je-arron bulldog Arron 10C/Ph1 Physics

je-arron bulldog Arron 10A/Ch1 Chemistry

je-arron bulldog Arron 10D/Eg1 Engine

je-arron trimm Arron 10A/Hu1 Hums

je-arron trimm Arron 10X/Pe2 P. E.

je-arron trimm Arron 10C/Rs1 Religious

je-arron trimm Arron 10E/Sc3 Sci.

je-arron trimm Arron 10X2/Ma Maths

je-arron trimm Arron 10X/En2 English

je-arron trimm Arron 10E/Sc3 Sci.

je-arron trimm Arron 10E/Sc3 Sci.

je-arron trimm Arron 10F/Sc3 Sci.

je-arron trimm Arron 10C/Rs1 Religious

je-arron trimm Arron 10B/It1 I.T.

je-arron trimm Arron 10E/Sc3 Sci.

je-arron trimm Arron 10D/Gy1 Geog.

je-arron trimm Arron 10F/Sc3 Sci.

je-arron trimm Arron 10F/Sc3 Sci.

je-arron trimm Arron 10F/Sc3 Sci.

je-arron trimm Arron 10X/Se4 PSE.

je-arron trimm Arron 10B/It1 I.T.

 

[redarrow]

I think your be able to do all this by adding the users date off birth to the database aswell............

 

 

[redarrow]

Sorry got it,

Just add there NI number then each child is defined as soly them......

[Barand]

I modified your sample to include a couple that aren't affected

 

je-arron  bulldog  Arron  10C/Bi1  Biology

je-arron  bulldog  Arron  10E/Eg1  Engine

je-arron  bulldog  Arron  10B/Bi1  Biology

je-arron  bulldog  Arron  10X/Pe4  P. E.

je-arron  bulldog  Arron  10E/Eg1  Engine

je-arron  bulldog  Arron  10A/Ph1  Physics

je-arron  bulldog  Arron  10X/Se4  PSE.

je-arron  bulldog  Arron  10B/Ch1  Chemistry

je-arron  trimm  Arron  10C/Rs1  Religious

je-arron  trimm  Arron  10B/It1  I.T.

je-arron  trimm  Arron  10E/Sc3  Sci.

je-arron  trimm  Arron  10D/Gy1  Geog.

je-arron  trimm  Arron  10F/Sc3  Sci.

je-arron  trimm  Arron  10F/Sc3  Sci.

je-arron  trimm  Arron  10F/Sc3  Sci.

je-arron  trimm  Arron  10X/Se4  PSE.

je-arron  trimm  Arron  10B/It1  I.T.

je-clark  kent  Clark  10C/Ch1  Chemistry

je-clark  kent  Clark  10F/It1  I.T.

je-clark  kent  Clark  10F/It1  I.T.

je-clark  kent  Clark  10X/En3  English

je-clark  kent  Clark  10X3/Ma  Maths

je-clark  kent  Clark  10F/It1  I.T.

je-clark  kent  Clark  10C/Ph1  Physics

je-clark  kent  Clark  10A/Ch1  Chemistry

je-clark  kent  Clark  10D/Eg1  Engine

je-harry  potter  Harry  10A/Hu1  Hums

je-harry  potter  Harry  10X/Pe2  P. E.

je-harry  potter  Harry  10C/Rs1  Religious

je-harry  potter  Harry  10E/Sc3  Sci.

je-harry  potter  Harry  10X2/Ma  Maths

je-harry  potter  Harry  10X/En2  English

je-harry  potter  Harry  10E/Sc3  Sci.

je-harry  potter  Harry  10E/Sc3  Sci.

je-harry  potter  Harry  10F/Sc3  Sci.

 

and assumed it's in a file called "register.txt"

 

<?php
    /***********
    * read file and put in array
    *   key = lastname_firstname, value = username
    * 
    * This will give one entry for each student
    */
$students = array();
$fp = fopen ('register.txt', 'r');
while ($data = fscanf($fp, '%s %s %s %s %s'))
{
    $students[$data[1].'_'.$data[2]] = $data[0];
}
fclose ($fp);
    /***************
    * now we have
    *
    *        $students = Array
    *        (
    *            [bulldog_Arron] => je-arron
    *            [trimm_Arron] => je-arron
    *            [kent_Clark] => je-clark
    *            [potter_Harry] => je-harry
    *        )    
    *
    *  Find duplicate entries
    */
$counts = array_count_values($students);
foreach ($counts as $username => $count)
{
    if ($count > 1)
    {
        append_initial ($students, $username);
    }
}

    /**********
    * now we have
    *
    *    Array
    *    (
    *        [bulldog_Arron] => je-arronb
    *        [trimm_Arron] => je-arront
    *        [kent_Clark] => je-clark
    *        [potter_Harry] => je-harry
    *    )
    *
    *  which can be re-applied to the original data
    */


/****************************************
* function to append intial of surname
*****************************************/
function append_initial (&$students, $username)
{
    // get duped items
    $dupes = array_keys ($students, $username);
    foreach ($dupes as $key)
    {
        // append initial
        $students[$key] .= $key[0];
    }
}
?>

[ReyC]

See I knew there'd be some clever wotsit 

 

Barand that looks awesome, I shall investigate tomorrow, but on inspection it'll looks like it'll work like a charm - I've literally spent hours looking at this and getting used to how php structures get put together.  I'm under some serious time pressure and am very very appreciative!  Wheres the /buys drink button on this ?

 

/bow

 

Rey

[ReyC]

Just tried this out, incorporated it into the rest of my scriptage and it works perfectly.

Many many thanks Barand...now I all have to do is work out how it works, I've not used the function parameters with the '&' feature until now!

Rey

[Barand]

The "&" passes the array "by reference" so the original array is updated from within the function. Without the "&" a copy of the array would have been passed.