Using word count function in string arrays - php

Question

My code is below.
1) I needed to get the number of words in each message in the message array and display it in a new array
2) If the number of words in each message was less than 5 I am supposed to add the words "smaller" to another new array and if the number of words in each message is greater than 5 I an supposed to add the string"bigger" to this same new array.
I am unsure of how to put this "bigger" and "smaller" into a new array. Please advise.(refer question 2)
$messages = array(
"Learning PHP is fun",
"I want to learn more",
"Girls can code too",
"Goodbye boredom!",
"Coding Geek",
"Computers can sometimes freeze up",
"Follow me now", "Coding is cool",
"Computer nerds are for real",
"This is the end of all the messages"
);
/* (1) */
for ($i = 0; $i < 10; $i++) {
$words[] = str_word_count($messages[$i]);
}
print_r($words);
echo "<br>";
/* (2) */
for ($i = 0; $i < 10; $i++) {
if ($words[$i] <= 5) {
$size[] = $words[$i];
echo "smaller" . "<br>";
} else {
$size[] = $words[$i];
echo"bigger";
}
}

Answer 1

First, you can use foreach instead of for loop in this case.
Second, this code is enough.Try it :
foreach($messages as $val){
$len = str_word_count($val);
if($len<=5){
$msg = "bigger";
}else{
$msg = "smaller";
}
$size[] = array("size"=>$len, "msg"=>$msg);
}
# Your $size array would be like :
# array(
# array("size"=>3, "msg"=>"smaller"),
# array("size"=>8, "msg"=>"bigger")
# )
# And you can print it or use it everywhere.

Answer 2

for loops work fine for arrays. You could think about using a variable which holds the length of the original array to use in the loop.
$numberOfMessages = count($messages);
$for ($i = 0; $i < $numberOfMessages; $i ++) {
...
}
My preferred way of doing this is the same as the first two examples using a foreach loop.
foreach ($messages as $message) {
$words[] = str_word_count($message);
}
This will create your first new array called $words by counting the number of words in each value ($message) from the original array ($messages). Using the <pre> tag formats the echo and makes it more readable.
echo '<pre>' . print_r($words, true) . '</pre>';
Your second new array is made is a similar way.
foreach ($words as $word) {
if ($word < 5) {
$size[] = 'smaller';
} else {
$size[] = 'bigger';
}
}
This time we take each value ($word) from our new $words array and check to see what size it is and populate the second new array $size. bablu's example using the ternary operator ?: This example is just the long-hand way of writing the same conditional statement.
Putting it all together
$messages = array (
'Learning PHP is fun',
'I want to learn more',
'Girls can code too',
'Goodbye boredom!',
'Coding Geek',
'Computers can sometimes freeze up',
'Follow me now', 'Coding is cool',
'Computer nerds are for real',
'This is the end of all the messages'
);
foreach ($messages as $message) {
$words[] = str_word_count($message);
}
echo '<pre>' . print_r($words, true) . '</pre>';
foreach ($words as $word) {
if ($word < 5) {
$size[] = 'smaller';
} else {
$size[] = 'bigger';
}
}
echo '<pre>' . print_r($size, true) . '</pre>';

Answer 3

Try this: its working fine for me:
<?php
$messages=array
("Learning PHP is fun","I want to learn more","Girls can code too","Goodbye boredom!","Coding Geek","Computers can sometimes freeze up","Follow me now","Coding is cool","Computer nerds are for real","This is the end of all the messages");
$newMessageArray = array();
$newCountArray = array();
foreach($messages as $message) {
$length = str_word_count($message);
$newMessageArray[] = $message;
$newCountArray[] = ($length >=5)?'Bigger':'Smaller';
}
echo '<pre>'; print_r($newMessageArray);
echo '<pre>'; print_r($newCountArray);
?>