RE: [PHP] Regular expressions

Sorry, forgot to copy the group on my reply to Richard and John. >On Tue, November 14, 2006 7:57 pm, John Meyer wrote: >> Is there a way to make a regular expression to match on a particular >> way the letters are arranged? For instance, if you had a word: >> >> THAT >> >> >> It could match on any word in the dictionary that had the form: >> >> 1231 > >I suspect if you worked hard enough at it you could get a regex to do >what you want... > >But it might be a heck of a lot easier to just build a database like >this: > ><?php > $path = "/usr/share/web2"; //Webster's 2nd ed. dictionary, public >domain, on some distros... > $file = fopen($path, 'r') or die("You may need to cp $path to your >own dir, as it is not readable here..."); > while (!feof($file)){ > $word = fgets($file, 1000000); > $code = wordcode($word); > //store $code | $word in some convenient way... > //perhaps a database > //perhaps each $code could be a file with all the $word[s] in it > //etc > } > > function wordcode($word){ > $code = array(); > $result = ''; > $len = strlen($word); > for ($i = 0; $i < $len; $i++){ > $c = $word[$i]; //or use substr if you hate string as array syntax > if (!isset($code[$c])){ > $code[$c] = count($code) + 1; > } > $d = $code[$c]; > $result .= $d; > } > } >?> > >NOTE: >For any word with more then 9 unique characters, you are going to have >SERIOUS problems... > >Consider this: >supercalifragilisticexpialidocious >123456789105711989... > > >How can you tell that '11' for the 'g' isn't supposed to be >'1' >followed by '1' for two 's' characters in a row? >supercalifrassilisticexpialidocious >123456789105711989... > >You may need to represent your digits in, say, hex form, or even in >base 26 form, which gives you the full alphabet as unique digits. > >-- >Some people have a "gift" link here. >Know what I want? >I want you to buy a CD from some starving artist. >http://cdbaby.com/browse/from/lynch >Yeah, I get a buck. So? Believe it or not I had to do something like this a while back. Here is a function. I have tweaked it to fit your needs a bit, but the example works. It seems to sort of follow what Lynch's psuedocode loosely. <?php /* *function convertToPattern converts a string into a pattern based on letter *frequency and position * * ex: "that" would convert to abca * "pretty" would convert to abcdde */ function convertToPattern($strCandidate){ //Set up the array that holds mapping of character to pattern character $arrHolder = array( "a"=>'', "b"=>'', "c"=>'', "d"=>'', "e"=>'', "f"=>'', "g"=>'', "h"=>'', "i"=>'', "j"=>'', "k"=>'', "l"=>'', "m"=>'', "n"=>'', "o"=>'', "p"=>'', "q"=>'', "r"=>'', "s"=>'', "t"=>'', "u"=>'', "v"=>'', "w"=>'', "x"=>'', "y"=>'', "z"=>'' ); //Now create an array with all of the letters of the alphabet in //it for reference $arrAlpha = array(); $idxAlphCreate = 0; foreach($arrHolder as $key => $data){ $arrAlpha[$idxAlphCreate] = $key; $idxAlphCreate++; } //split the string into an array so we can walk it $arrCandidate = str_split($strCandidate); $cntCandidate = count($arrCandidate); $idxCandidate = 0; $idxHolder = 0; //walk through the array made from the string while($idxCandidate < $cntCandidate){ //get the current char $charCandidate = $arrCandidate[$idxCandidate]; //if the char is already in the array it has been mapped //if not, map it to the next available letter if(!(in_array($charCandidate, $arrHolder))){ $arrHolder[$arrAlpha[$idxHolder]] = $charCandidate; $idxHolder++; } $idxCandidate++; } //initialize our converted string $strConverted = ""; //loop through the array one more time to create our converted string foreach($arrCandidate as $char){ $arrKeyCheck=array_keys($arrHolder, $char); $strConverted.=$arrKeyCheck[0]; } return $strConverted; } //Example $strA = "that"; $strB = "croc"; $patternA = convertToPattern($strA); $patternB = convertToPattern($strB); if($patternA == $patternB){ echo "Bingo!"; }else{ echo "Not so much..."; } ?> HTH, Jesse R. Castro Applications Development Pocket Communications