stripos with mutli dimensional arrays

Question

I am trying to work out a php function to search the referring page for terms and then perform a function based on the existence of those terms.

Creating the basic code wasn't an issue, but with a fairly large number of words and optional actions, the script is getting quite long using individual lines for each group of words/function. The basic code concept is below. The stripos functions are in reverse order of preference, so that if two or more terms appear, then the most important ones are last and will over ride the previous ones

(I imagine there maybe a way to exit the script after the first condition is met, but my experiments with exit failed, so I just used reverse sequencing).

group1 = array("word1","word2","word3","word4","word5");
group2 = array("word6","word7","word8");
group3 ... etc

foreach($group1 as $groupa) { if(stripos($string, $groupa) !== false) { do something A; }  }
foreach($group2 as $groupb) { if(stripos($string, $groupb) !== false) { do something B; }  }
foreach ... etc

Is there a way to use a two dimensional array or two arrays, one with words and one with action ? ie:

words = array("word1","word2","word3","word4","word5","word6","word7","word8")
actions = array("something A","something A","something A","something A","something A","something B","something B","something B")

foreach($words as $word) { if(stripos($string, $word) !== false) { do actions; }  }

...... UPDATED ......

Inspired by Phillips suggestion, we ended up with a multidimensional array and then stepped through its "rows". Now working on fetching the array from MySQL rather than writing it out in code.

$terms = array( 
array( "word" => "word1", 
      "cat" => "dstn",
      "value" => "XXXX" 
    ),
    ..etc
    ..etc
);
foreach ($terms as $i => $row)  
{ if(stripos($refstring3, $row['word']) !== false) { $$row['cat'] = $row['value']; }  }

...... UPDATED ......

It has evolved to a simple MySQL query, followed by a while statement rather than a foreach. Works like a charm, thanks to feedback and various other posts on Stackoverflow.

Thanks to all.

This place is great for learning and understanding, posts jump straight to the meat of things and skip having to search through numerous related but inapplicable tutorials.

Answer 1

You could store your word-actions as a key-value array in the form of

$actionsForWord = array("myAction" => "myword", "myAction2" => "myword2");

then go through these and use Eval and string concatenation to call the function: http://php.net/manual/en/function.eval.php

However, if you tell us more about what you actually want to achieve -- i.e. what are some examples of actions you want to take, based on what words? -- there may be much better and cleaner ways to organize your code. And keep in mind that Eval needs to be secured by never passing it user content, so only work with your own "whitelisted" commands.

Answer 2

Although the answer Philipp Lenssen gave is certainly correct (and accepted) and will work, I really dislike the thought of using eval to perform a function. You can try this instead;

<?php
function search( $content, $actions ) {
    foreach( $actions as $action => $terms ) {
        foreach( $terms as $term ) {
            if( stripos( $content, $term ) !== false ) {
                /* Match found, perform $action, and return. */
                return $action( strtolower( $term ) );
            }
        }
    }
    return false;
}

function foo( $term ) {
    return "foo(): Found the term '{$term}'.";
}

function bar( $term ) {
    return "bar(): Found the term '{$term}'.";
}


$tests = array(
    'This is text containing term 1' => "foo(): Found the term 'term 1'.",
    'term 2 is in this text' => "foo(): Found the term 'term 2'.",
    'Capitals work, TERM 3' => "bar(): Found the term 'term 3'.",
    'No correct term to be found here' => false
);

$actions = array(
    'foo' => array(
        'term 1',
        'term 2'
    ),
    'bar' => array(
        'term 3'
    )
);

foreach( $tests as $content => $expected ) {
    $result = search( $content, $actions );
    echo $result . ( $result === $expected ? ' (CORRECT)' : ' (FALSE)' ) . PHP_EOL;
}

There really is no need to use eval and I would strongly advise against it.