PHP problems

[Truman]

Hi, I was hoping that you could help we with this problem.

First, I need to make $name variable with my name. After that, using knowledge of strlen(string), rand(min, max), and substr(string, start, length) I need to print a random character from my name. It's a codeacademy problem. So it shouldn't be a number, only one of letters of my name.

[justsomeguy]

What code do you have so far? Do you know how those functions work, have you looked them up in the manual? e.g.:

 

http://php.net/manual/en/function.substr.php

[Truman]

Yes, I know how those functions work but I hit a snag.

This is one of the solutions that I've tried but it doesn't work:

 

$name = "milos";
$sub0 = substr($name, 0);
$sub1 = substr($name, 1);
$sub2 = substr($name, 2);
$sub3 = substr($name, 3);
$sub4 = substr($name, 4);
print rand($sub0, $sub4);

[justsomeguy]

Right, that's not going to work. You set $sub0 to "milos", $sub1 to "ilos", $sub2 to "los", etc, and $sub4 to "s". Then you're passing "milos" and "s" to the rand function. The rand function takes numbers, not strings. You didn't use the strlen function there, you need to use that. Figure out how many characters there are, use that length with rand to get a random number that is in the length, and then use the random number with substr.

[Truman]

In one of my previous efforts this is what I wrote:

$name = "milos";
$length = strlen($name);
print rand(0, $length);

 

I don't know how and why should I use a random number with substring. For previous code I receive a message "The random output you printed from your name should be a letter."

[Ingolme]

That's why you need substr(). You have a number you can use in it.

[justsomeguy]

You pass the random number to substr as the position to start, and the length should be 1 to return 1 character.

[Truman]

I wrote this code:

$name = "milos";
$length = strlen($name);
print rand(0, $length);
$subs = substr($name, rand(0, $length), 1);
echo $subs;

 

from some reason it doesn't work.

[justsomeguy]

What does that print? The random number should actually be to $length - 1. The length is 5, but the character positions are 0 through 4, 5 isn't a valid character position.

[Truman]

I did what you asked me to but again it says "Oops, try again. The random output you printed from your name should be a letter."

so the problem is not in character position, it's about content of output.

[justsomeguy]

Is the problem because you print the random number?

[Truman]

Yup, thank you!

[Truman]

I have a question - when I make two or more instances in a class do I use one function construct_ or one for each instances?

[Ingolme]

There is only one class definition with only one constructor, you can make as many instances of the class as you want without making any change to the class. You probably should make a different thread for this since it's completely unrelated to the topic.