PHP: How do I change a variable dependent on another variable? (Newbie stuff)

Question

I'm pretty new to webcoding and would like to improve a bit in php, but I'm already stuck :/

What I am trying to do is to have a sentence like
"Simon likes apples"
Now I have an input form for the name so I can choose the name. So it looks like
"$name likes apples"

<table>
    <tr>
        <td><input type="text" id="name1" name="name1"></td>
        <td><input type="submit" id="submit" name="submit" value="Apply"></td>
    </tr>
</table>
    </div>
    <div id="text">
    <?php
        if(isset($_REQUEST['submit'])) {
        $name1 = $_REQUEST['name1'];
        echo "$name1 likes apples.";
        }
    ?>
    </div>
</form>

Everything fine till now. Whatever name I type in replaces $name. Now what I want to do is to change the "likes" to "like" whenever i type in a pronoun (I, You, They etc.), which makes sense obviously. Now here is where I don't know what to do. My current code (which doesnt work) looks like this:

    <?php
        if(isset($_REQUEST['submit'])) {
        $name1 = $_REQUEST['name1'];
          if ($name1 = "I", "You") {
          $verb = "like";
          }
          else {
          $verb = "likes";
          }
        echo "$name1 $verb apples";
        }
    ?>

Also is there a way to make it case insensitive?

Try `in_array`. https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.in-array.php — Progrock, Nov 22 '19 at 22:19
Check this out: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2166512/php-case-insensitive-in-array-function (scroll down to the second answer.) — Don't Panic, Nov 22 '19 at 22:34
See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5473542/case-insensitive-string-comparison about doing the comparison case-insensitively. — Barmar, Nov 22 '19 at 22:36

Abolfazl Ghaemi · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-22T22:36:02.300

there are few problems in your code .

single = means SET my variable to whatever string is after . so if you want to see if your variable is equal to a string like You , you have to use == , it will return true or false .

now we want to say if my variable was You or I , change my second variable to like . thats gonna be the output :

  if ($name1 == "I" || $name1 == "You") {
  $verb = "like";
  }
  else {
  $verb = "likes";
  }

so now it says if $name1 was equal to I OR(||) $name1 was equal to You , change the $verb to like .

we use || as OR and && as AND.

if you want echo variables and string you should use . as split between your variable and string . so it will be like this :

echo $name1 . $verb . "apples";

it's kind of like + but not in a math way , it just means add .

UPDATE

yes . there is a way to check your string case insensitive . you have to use strcasecmp() .

in your code , it should be like :

  if (strcasecmp($name1,"I") == 0 || strcasecmp($name1,"You") == 0 ) {
  $verb = "like";
  }
  else {
  $verb = "likes";
  }

You didn't answer the question about how to make it case-insensitive. — Barmar, Nov 22 '19 at 22:35

Jimmix · Answer 2 · 2019-11-22T23:43:19.660

Case insensitive replacement, $lut table defines what should be replaced with what. You may place it inside the replaceMe function if you don't want to change it over time.

Code:

<?php

$lut = [
    'like' => [
        'I',
        'You',
        'They',
        'We',
    ],
    'likes' => [
        'she',
        'he',
        'it',
        'someone',
        'somebody',
    ],
];

function replaceMe(string $name, array $lut) : string
{
    foreach ($lut as $key => $value) {
        $nameLower = strtolower($name);
        $valueLowerArr = array_map(
            function($input) {
                return strtolower($input);
            },
            $value
        );
        if (in_array($nameLower, $valueLowerArr)) {
            return strtolower($key);
        }
    }
    return '';
}

$name = 'She';
echo "$name = " . replaceMe($name, $lut) . '<br>' . PHP_EOL;

$name = 'I';
echo "$name = " . replaceMe($name, $lut) . '<br>' . PHP_EOL;

$name = 'iT';
echo "$name = " . replaceMe($name, $lut) . '<br>' . PHP_EOL;

$name = 'TheY';
echo "$name = " . replaceMe($name, $lut) . '<br>' . PHP_EOL;

$name = 'nobody';
echo "$name = " . replaceMe($name, $lut) . '<br>' . PHP_EOL;

Gives Result:

She = likes<br>
I = like<br>
iT = likes<br>
TheY = like<br>
nobody = <br>

PHP: How do I change a variable dependent on another variable? (Newbie stuff)

2 Answers2