Given two character arrays (or strings), each contaning only letters A..Z or spaces, and thus holding words, produce a program that determines whether or not the first word would preceed the second, in a dictionary.
Most of the problems towards the end of this chapter are very simple to complete in PHP. This one isn't an exception.
<?
// generates random strings of nonsense
function random_string()
{
// random number of letters
for ($n = 0; $n < mt_rand(20, 40); $n++)
{
// if this isn't the first character
// if the last character isn't a space
// If there's a small chance
if ($n <> 0 && substr($string, $n-1, 1) <> ' ' && mt_rand(1, 3) == 1)
// concatenate a space
$string .= ' ';
else
// otherwise, add a random letter
$string .= chr(ord('A') + mt_rand(0, 25));
}
return $string;
}
// create two strings
$string1 = random_string();
$string2 = random_string();
// show both strings
echo $string1 . '<br/>' . $string2;
// show which would appear first
echo '<br/>String ' . (2-($string1 < $string2)) . ' would appear first.';
?>Which produces:
H POPFHZNZAP LS BV TTU
VWBT L I O XC F FKN HKZB PB TL
String 1 would appear first.