PHP loop isn't working, what am I doing wrong? - php

Question

I am building a function that would receive 2 params, a string and a number.
it would basically print the first letters $n of $s.
I need to run a loop, please don't advise other non looping methods.
And yes, I need to keep the loop true throughout the function, it's suppose to close when the if is met.
For some reason the loop isn't closing, even though there's a return in the if condition that is being met when $stringCounter equals $n (=10 in this example.)
function printCounter($s, $n)
{
$stringCaller = '';
$stringCounter = strlen($stringCaller);
while (1) {
$stringCaller .= $s;
if ($stringCounter == $n) {
return $stringCaller;
}
}
}
printCounter('aba', '10');

Answer 1

You should imove the calc of $stringCounter inside the loop otherwise this never change
$stringCaller = '';
while (1) {
$stringCounter = strlen($stringCaller);
$stringCaller .= $s;
if ($stringCounter >= $n) {
return $stringCaller;
}
}

Answer 2

On my oppinion, TS is searching next approach:
function printCounter($s, $n)
{
$result = '';
$str_lenght = strlen($s);
if(!$str_lenght) {
return $result;
}
while (true) {
$result .= $s;
$result_lenght = strlen($result);
if($result_lenght/$str_lenght >= $n) {
return $result_lenght;
}
}
}
echo printCounter('aba', '10');
exit;

Answer 3

You can fix part of the issue by updating $stringCounter inside the loop.
function printCounter($s, $n)
{
$stringCaller = '';
while (1) {
$stringCaller .= $s;
$stringCounter = strlen($stringCaller); // check strlen after each addition of $s
if ($stringCounter == $n) {
return $stringCaller;
}
}
}
However, even after you fix that issue, there will still be cases where your loop will never exit (such as the example in your question) because $stringCounter can only equal $n if $n is a multiple of strlen($s).
For the example printCounter('aba', '10');
Iteration $stringCounter ($stringCounter == $n)
1 3 false
2 6 false
3 9 false
4 12 false
Obviously $stringCounter will only get farther away from $n from that point.
So to ensure that the function will exit, check for inequality instead with:
if ($stringCounter >= $n) {
If you need the function to return exactly $n characters, the function will need to be a little more complex and take a substring of $s to make up the remaining characters when $stringCounter + strlen($s) will be greater than $n, or return an $n character substring of your result like this:
function printCounter($s, $n)
{
$result = '';
while (1) {
$result .= $s;
if (strlen($result) >= $n) {
return substr($result, 0, $n);
}
}
}