PHP Spintax return array with all possibilities

Question

I have a string: {Hello|Howdy|Hola} to you, {Mr.|Mrs.|Ms.} {Smith|Williams|Austin}!

I wonder if someone can help me out with a function that will return an array with all the possibilities ? Or at least provide the logic on how to get them and what PHP functions to use ?

Thank you

I am sure `var_dump` or `print_r` would give you the desired array, unless I have completely misunderstood your question. — Jake Ball, May 19 '13 at 21:04

Orangepill · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-20T02:49:25.297

Nested foreach loops.

foreach($greetings as greeting)
    foreach($titles as title)
        foreach($names as $name)
            echo $greeting,' to you, ',$title,' ',$name;

You can adjust the order that they appear by sorting the arrays beforehand and by changing the order on the first three lines

UPDATE

This is what I came up with using a recursive function

It assumes you have your data in something like this using regular expressions and explode this should be pretty trivial to get to:

$data = array(
    array("Hello","Howdy","Hola"),
    array(" to you, "),
    array("Mr.", "Mrs.", "Ms."),
    array(" "),
    array("Smith","Williams","Austin"),
    array("!")
);

Now here is the function

function permute(&$arr, &$res, $cur = "", $n = 0){

    if ($n == count($arr)){
        // we are past the end of the array... push the results
        $res[] = $cur;
    } else {
                    //permute one level down the array
        foreach($arr[$n] as $term){
            permute($arr, $res, $cur.$term, $n+1);
        }
    }
}

Here is an example invocation:

$ret = array();
permute($data, $ret);
print_r($ret);

Which yields the output

    Array
(
    [0] => Hello to you, Mr. Smith!
    [1] => Hello to you, Mr. Williams!
    [2] => Hello to you, Mr. Austin!
    [3] => Hello to you, Mrs. Smith!
    [4] => Hello to you, Mrs. Williams!
    [5] => Hello to you, Mrs. Austin!
    [6] => Hello to you, Ms. Smith!
    [7] => Hello to you, Ms. Williams!
    [8] => Hello to you, Ms. Austin!
    [9] => Howdy to you, Mr. Smith!
    [10] => Howdy to you, Mr. Williams!
    [11] => Howdy to you, Mr. Austin!
    [12] => Howdy to you, Mrs. Smith!
    [13] => Howdy to you, Mrs. Williams!
    [14] => Howdy to you, Mrs. Austin!
    [15] => Howdy to you, Ms. Smith!
    [16] => Howdy to you, Ms. Williams!
    [17] => Howdy to you, Ms. Austin!
    [18] => Hola to you, Mr. Smith!
    [19] => Hola to you, Mr. Williams!
    [20] => Hola to you, Mr. Austin!
    [21] => Hola to you, Mrs. Smith!
    [22] => Hola to you, Mrs. Williams!
    [23] => Hola to you, Mrs. Austin!
    [24] => Hola to you, Ms. Smith!
    [25] => Hola to you, Ms. Williams!
    [26] => Hola to you, Ms. Austin!
)

Thanks Orangepill, but that's limited. And i won't even have a clue on how many combinations of { | } i will get. Can be 10, 100 :) — raul, May 19 '13 at 08:08
From what i could read over the internet, i'll probably need some permutations. I've found a couple of good permutation functions, don't just know how to combine them with that string — raul, May 19 '13 at 08:10
@raul - All the possibilities? What you posted looks like article spinning. In that case, you don't need all the possibilities. You just need to randomly select an item within each set of brackets. — Expedito, May 19 '13 at 09:03
Yes, it's like article spinning. But i want all the possibilities. The project is a bit different. I have the spinning class, works just fine. I just don't know how to write or change stuff to give me the array with all, instead of 1 random line. — raul, May 19 '13 at 18:30
ah, maybe to mention that i don't really care about NESTED one, like { hello {x|y}, how are you|good day {x|y} !} I just care about that 1 level actually:) — raul, May 19 '13 at 19:02
OrangePill, yes, that looks great. And yes, i can split the initial string and make that first array. — raul, May 20 '13 at 18:21

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 24 '14 at 20:45

0

I know it's a little late, but if you are still looking for a better solution, you can take a look at this: ChillDevSpintax.

answered Jan 24 '14 at 20:45

Rafał Wrzeszcz

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PHP Spintax return array with all possibilities

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