Small PHP Issue

[Twinkie]

There is a variable called flags created throughout my script that this function responds to. For some reason, with the variable set as dumped below, it does not print anything. Why??? *growls*

function feedback($type) {
    if (count($flags[$type]) > 1) {
        echo "<div id=\"statusbox_" . $type . "\"><ul>\n";
        foreach ($flags[$type] as $value) {
            echo "<li>" . $value . "</li>\n";
        }
        echo "</ul></div>\n";
    } else if (count($flags[$type]) == 1) {
        echo "<div id=\"statusbox_" . $type . "\">" . $flags[$type][0] . "</div>\n";
    }
}

feedback("success");
feedback("failure");

Array ( [failure] => Array  (  [0] => WARNING: There are no valid services available.  )

As an afterthought, it is amazing that no matter how experienced, or how large your applications are, it is always the little things that get you. If you think I am an idiot for asking this question, then you have not coded enough.

 

[Gouri]

There is a variable called flags created throughout my script that this function responds to. For some reason, with the variable set as dumped below, it does not print anything. Why??? *growls*

function feedback($type) {
    if (count($flags[$type]) > 1) {
        echo "<div id=\"statusbox_" . $type . "\"><ul>\n";
        foreach ($flags[$type] as $value) {
            echo "<li>" . $value . "</li>\n";
        }
        echo "</ul></div>\n";
    } else if (count($flags[$type]) == 1) {
        echo "<div id=\"statusbox_" . $type . "\">" . $flags[$type][0] . "</div>\n";
    }
}

feedback("success");
feedback("failure");

Array ( [failure] => Array  (  [0] => WARNING: There are no valid services available.  )

As an afterthought, it is amazing that no matter how experienced, or how large your applications are, it is always the little things that get you. If you think I am an idiot for asking this question, then you have not coded enough.

Is "success" and "failure" are only elements or another arrays inside the "flags" array

If they are just elements then count (array[value]) is the problem.

If not they are arrays then it has to return the number of elements of inner arrays.

To count number of success and failures then you have to do manually i think.

PS: remove "\n" and place <BR>

 

[Twinkie]

Is "success" and "failure" are only elements or another arrays inside the "flags" array
If they are just elements then count (array[value]) is the problem.

I included the var_dump so you can see what was in the array at the time of the problem. In this case, to my knowledge, the 'count($flags[$type])' should have been counting the number of elements in the array of strings @ the key 'failure' within the multidimensional flags array. There is only one element there, which means that it should have printed a box with one string in it, but instead, the 'count($flags[$type])' statement returns zero, and focus slips out of that if statement altogether. WHy doesn't it return 1?

remove "\n" and place <BR>

Thats just there so I can read the HTML output. I hate sources that have no line breaks. But thanks for the tip.

 

[Gouri]

Hi Twinkie,

$count =array_count_values($flags);
$count[$type]      //  This will give you the number of success or failures.

So total your code will become.

function feedback($type) { 
    $count =array_count_values($flags);
    if ($count[$type]) > 1) { 
        echo "<div id=\"statusbox_" . $type . "\"><ul>"; 
        foreach ($flags[$type] as $value) { 
            echo "<li>" . $value . "</li>\n"; 
        } 
        echo "</ul></div>\n"; 
    } else if ($count[$type] == 1) { 
        echo "<div id=\"statusbox_" . $type . "\">" . $flags[$type][0] . "</div>"; 
    }
} 

feedback("success"); 
feedback("failure");

 

[Twinkie]

With that code, I get this error: array_count_values() [<a href='function.array-count-values'>function.array-count-values</a>]: The argument should be an array

I don't understand why I should divert from count(), or why it isn't working?

 

[Gouri]

That means if $flags holds only one element, It is not an array, It is just an element, that is the error in both the case count and array_count_values

 

[Twinkie]

To my knowledge, if an array holds only one element, then it is still an array and it is accessed by the [0] key. However, I tried this code anyway and it produced the same results:

function feedback($type) {
	if (is_array($flags[$type])) {
		echo "<div id=\"statusbox_" . $type . "\"><ul>\n";
		foreach ($flags[$type] as $value) {
			echo "<li>" . $value . "</li>\n";
		}
		echo "</ul></div>\n";
	} else if (isset($flags[$type])) {
		echo "<div id=\"statusbox_" . $type . "\">" . $flags[$type] . "</div>\n";
	}
}

feedback("success");
feedback("failure");

 

[slacker3]

print_r($flags); // ?

 

[misson]

$flags isn't declared global in feedback(). In any case, globals are (often) evil.

PS: remove "\n" and place <BR>

<br> isn't semantic and is mostly abused. If you need line separation in the rendered view, use elements that naturally separate, such as <p> for paragraphs.

 

[Twinkie]

Ahhhhhhhhhh! I always forget that, and it is always the longest time before I realize my mistake. Thank you!

Unless we are working OOP, globals are a necessary evil.

 

[zegnhabi]

para mas información ve este link

 

[misson]

You can minimize globals by passing additional arguments. If there are only 1 or 2 arguments, this works well. With 4 or more, it becomes unwieldy.

On the subject of OOP, you could create a class (e.g. Options or Config) that has the globally available data as a static member. Then you don't pollute the global namespace as much, though coupling is still too high.