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I have created a word game in php/mysql where users are presented with a randomly selected word in a foreign language and then have to fill in missing letters (which depending on the word length are sometimes randomly removed or sometimes all letters are removed) from the english version of these words into form input fields which are later submitted to the database via a form for checking...

The code below works ok except for when a word has more than one instance of a particular letter for examples the word "Bees"

For example it will go through find "e" but then replace both instances of the letter "e" with either 

<input type="text" name="question_1_letter_1" class="inputs" maxlength="1" value="" />
         or 
<input type="text" name="question_1_letter_2" class="inputs" maxlength="1" value="" />

What I really want is for it to just replace once the first "e" it finds so one instance of the letter "e" is replaced by 

<input type="text" name="question_1_letter_1" class="inputs" maxlength="1" value="" />

and the other instance is replaced with

<input type="text" name="question_1_letter_2" class="inputs" maxlength="1" value="" />

here is the main code

    $one = "question_1_letter_$key1";
    $two = "question_1_letter_$key2";
    $three = "question_1_letter_$key3";
    $four = "question_1_letter_$key4";
    $string = Bees;
    $selected_letter1 = B;
    $selected_letter2 = e;
    $selected_letter3 = e;
    $selected_letter4 = s;

$Find = Array($selected_letter1, $selected_letter2, $selected_letter3, $selected_letter4);

$Replace = Array(
"`<input type=\"text\" name=\"$one\" class=\"inputs\" maxlength=\"1\" value=\"\" />`",
"`<input type=\"text\" name=\"$two\" class=\"inputs\" maxlength=\"1\" value=\"\" />`",
"`<input type=\"text\" name=\"$three\" class=\"inputs\" maxlength=\"1\" value=\"\" />`",
"`<input type=\"text\" name=\"$four\" class=\"inputs\" maxlength=\"1\" value=\"\" />`"
);

$New_string = strtr($string, array_combine($Find, $Replace));

echo $New_string;

Hope that makes sense! Im still very much a novice php programmer and stuck as to how I can achieve this and may well be overlooking a much simpler solution that I am currently unaware of... if anyone can lend a hand and give me some pointers it would be greatly appreciated!!

user3632190
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    `strpos` can be useful to locate the first occurrence of a character. – Ofir Baruch Apr 22 '15 at 10:51
  • thanks for taking the time to comment ofir, ill go look into learning about strpos... although as the letters are sometimes randomly removed from the word the position in the string isn't constant so not too sure how to approach that... is there a way i can just limit it as per preg_replace('/abc/', '123', $str, 1); – user3632190 Apr 22 '15 at 13:51

0 Answers0