I am working in php and I am trying to create 1000 tickets in a database. Each ticket needs it's own unique code that consists of letters and numbers about 6 characters long.
EXP.
Tbl_Tickets
ID code
1 3F2jk7
2 2HGUF1
3 9FJDNJ
4 MFJEY9
5 23988D
I was wondering is there a simple way of doing this with php, or excel, or any other way for that matter. I know that i can use a random number generator, but the check for the Unique would have a large BigO notation and the check would get messy.
Unique is not compatible with random, but the following might suit:
=CHOOSE(RANDBETWEEN(1,2),RANDBETWEEN(0,9),CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(65,90)))
copied across to populate six columns (say A to F) with, in G:
=A1&B1&C1&D1&E1&F1
and both copied down to say row 1100. Then select G, copy Paste Special Values, and Remove Duplicates on ColumnG and select first 1000 entries.
You could easily create an array of strings in php and write it to a database:
function generateRandomString($length = 6, $letters = '1234567890QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM'){
$s = '';
$lettersLength = strlen($letters)-1;
for($i = 0 ; $i < $length ; $i++){
$s .= $letters[rand(0,$lettersLength)];
}
return $s;
}
// Create an array with random strings
for ($i=0; $i<1000; $i++){
$ticket_numbers = array();
$ticket_number = generateRandomString();
while (in_array($ticket_number,$ticket_numbers))
$ticket_number = generateRandomString();
$ticket_numbers[] = $ticket_number;
}
// Write the array to a database
$con = mysqli_connect("myhost","myuser","mypassw","mybd") or die("Error");
foreach ($ticket_numbers as $number){
mysqli_query($con,"Your insert query using the value $number");
}
mysqli_close($con);
This should help you in the right direction though there are probably better ways to do this.
The function generateRandomString() was taken from How to generate random numbers/letters with PHP/Javascript
And another option. Encryption is guaranteed to be unique, so encrypting the numbers 0, 1, 2, ... will give you guaranteed unique random-seeming output. Six characters is 30 bits using Base32, or 36 bits using Base64. You will need a 30 (or 36 bit) cypher. Unless you have a library that includes Hasty Pudding cypher (unlikely) then just implement a simple four round Feistel cypher with the appropriate block size. It will not be completely secure, but it will be enough to defeat casual attacks.
This will produce random strings in column B with no repeats from B1 thru B1001
Sub Lottery()
Dim i As Long, j As Long, c As Collection
Set c = New Collection
v = Split("0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z", ",")
For i = 1 To 5000
can = ""
For j = 1 To 6
can = can & v(Application.RandBetween(0, 35))
Next j
On Error Resume Next
c.Add can, CStr(can)
On Error GoTo 0
If c.Count = 1000 Then Exit For
Next i
For i = 1 To 1000
Cells(i + 1, 2).Value = c(i)
Next i
End Sub
Related
I wonder if there is a way in PHP to generate a unique alphanumeric(case sensitive) tokens that can be unique forever without any collision. If we derive them from the time stamp string which is 10 characters like: 1394452319, that might be possible but I am not sure if we can make the token short up to 4 characters? If not possible then 5, 6, 7 and max is 8 characters. Because I want to generate short tokens to be readable by users.
Tokens should look like: 1aYc, ZoXq, 3iU9, etc.
I don't want to show the users any sequence.
One more thing, my application will be used by more than one user, so in case two users clicked at same time to generate the token, will the PHP application generate the same token (I assume we use the timestamp to generate the token)? How can we prevent from this problem?
Thank you for your help!
this is the another function that you can use also
<?php
function generateRandomString($length = 8) {
$characters = '0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ';
$randomString = '';
for ($i = 0; $i < $length; $i++) {
$randomString .= $characters[rand(0, strlen($characters) - 1)];
}
return $randomString;
}
echo generateRandomString();
?>
One approach is to have an incremental (i.e. auto_update) id that you keep hidden internally. From that, you generate a hash, representing the id to hide the sequence. The incremented id gets rid of collision problems (i.e. MySQL has an integrated solution for this).
The trick you need to use now is a random hash table consinsting of two columns, both having the values n to m but with the second column being randomized. i.e.
col1 | col2
1 | 2
2 | 4
3 | 5
4 | 1
5 | 3
if you have the randomly sorted number for your incremented number, it is easy to create a hash from that. Just think about your possible chars as numbers. You get it righgt?
Assuming you have a good algorithm for random numbers, you can make a pretty good hash table. However, there also is a way to find an algorithm, providing you with the numbers as they increase. So in this example it would give you col2 = fn(col1) so i.e. 4 = fn(2).
All you have to do is take the result and re-enginer it into a formular :D
Otherwise you have to fill the table initially.
To give you a glimpse insight into the math of it, think of a function that uses odd/even characteristics of the number and combines it with addition.
With n digits using a range of 62 possibilitys (case sensitive letters and numbers) per char you have 62^n possibilities.
For 4 digits that makes 14776336 possibilities (62^4).
Thou that might sound just wonderfull, you can imagine that having a table, prefilled with 14776336 id's is not the cleanest solution.
Still, i hope this at least leads into the right direction.
EDIT:
We started a discussion on math.stackexchange.com. IT has some additional information on how to create a function for our needs.
You can use something like following
<?php
// chars
$chars = 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789!##$%^&*()-+';
// convert to array
$arr = str_split($chars, 1);
// shuffle the array
shuffle($arr);
// array to chars with 8 chars
echo substr(implode('', $arr), 0, 8);
?>
You can use this function :
// RETRUN 24 digit of UNIX ID :
public function getComplexIDTicket(){ // duplicate method on Rest.php
$arrAZ1 = range('A','Z');
$arrAZ2 = range('A','Z');
$arrAZ3 = range('A','Z');
$arrs1 = range('A','Z');
$arrs2 = range('A','Z');
$arrs3 = range('A','Z');
$a1 = $arrAZ1[rand(0,25)];
$a2 = $arrAZ2[rand(0,25)];
$a3 = $arrAZ3[rand(0,25)];
$s1 = $arrs1[rand(0,25)];
$s2 = $arrs2[rand(0,25)];
$s3 = $arrs3[rand(0,25)];
$s = $s1.$s2.$s3;
$t = microtime(true);
$micro = sprintf("%07d",($t - floor($t)) * 10000000);
$id = date('ymdHis').strtoupper(dechex(substr($micro,0,7)));
$id = str_pad($id, 24, $a3.$a2.$a1.$s, STR_PAD_RIGHT);
// 151106214010 3DDBF0 L D C SM4
return $id;
}
I'm generating a 6 digit code from the following characters. These will be used to stamp on stickers.
They will be generated in batches of 10k or less (before printing) and I don't envisage there will ever be more than 1-2 million total (probably much less).
After I generate the batches of codes, I'll check the MySQL database of existing codes to ensure there are no duplicates.
// exclude problem chars: B8G6I1l0OQDS5Z2
$characters = 'ACEFHJKMNPRTUVWXY4937';
$string = '';
for ($i = 0; $i < 6; $i++) {
$string .= $characters[rand(0, strlen($characters) - 1)];
}
return $string;
Is this a solid approach to generating the code?
How many possible permutations would there be? (6 Digit code from pool of 21 characters). Sorry math isn't my strong point
21^6 = 85766121 possibilities.
Using a DB and storing used values is bad. If you want to fake randomness you can use the following:
Reduce to 19 possible numbers and make use of the fact that groups of order p^k where p is an odd prime are always cyclic.
Take the group of order 7^19, using a generator co-prime to 7^19 (I'll pick 13^11, you can choose anything not divisible by 7).
Then the following works:
$previous = 0;
function generator($previous)
{
$generator = pow(13,11);
$modulus = pow(7,19); //int might be too small
$possibleChars = "ACEFHJKMNPRTUVWXY49";
$previous = ($previous + $generator) % $modulus;
$output='';
$temp = $previous;
for($i = 0; $i < 6; $i++) {
$output += $possibleChars[$temp % 19];
$temp = $temp / 19;
}
return $output;
}
It will cycle through all possible values and look a little random unless they go digging. An even safer alternative would be multiplicative groups but I forget my math already :(
There is a lot of possible combination with or without repetition so your logic would be sufficient
Collision would be frequent because you are using rand see str_shuffle and randomness.
Change rand to mt_rand
Use fast storage like memcached or redis not MySQL when checking
Total Possibility
21 ^ 6 = 85,766,121
85,766,121 should be ok , To add database to this generation try:
Example
$prifix = "stamp.";
$cache = new Memcache();
$cache->addserver("127.0.0.1");
$stamp = myRand(6);
while($cache->get($prifix . $stamp)) {
$stamp = myRand(6);
}
echo $stamp;
Function Used
function myRand($no, $str = "", $chr = 'ACEFHJKMNPRTUVWXY4937') {
$length = strlen($chr);
while($no --) {
$str .= $chr{mt_rand(0, $length- 1)};
}
return $str;
}
as Baba said generating a string on the fly will result in tons of collisions. the closer you will go to 80 millions already generated ones the harder it will became to get an available string
another solution could be to generate all possible combinations once, and store each of them in the database already, with some boolean column field that marks if a row/token is already used or not
then to get one of them
SELECT * FROM tokens WHERE tokenIsUsed = 0 ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 0,1
and then mark it as already used
UPDATE tokens SET tokenIsUsed = 1 WHERE token = ...
You would have 21 ^ 6 codes = 85 766 121 ~ 85.8 million codes!
To generate them all (which would take some time), look at the selected answer to this question: algorithm that will take numbers or words and find all possible combinations.
I had the same problem, and I found very impressive open source solution:
http://www.hashids.org/php/
You can take and use it, also it's worth it to look in it's source code to understand what's happening under the hood.
Or... you can encode username+datetime in md5 and save to database, this for sure will generate an unique code ;)
There is a problem in Interview Street challange. Maybe the most easiest of all challenges. "Unfriendly Numbers", is the name and question goes like this.
There is one friendly number and N unfriendly numbers. We want to find how many numbers are there which exactly divide the friendly number, but does not divide any of the unfriendly numbers.
Input Format:
The first line of input contains two numbers N and K seperated by spaces. N is the number of unfriendly numbers, K is the friendly number.
The second line of input contains N space separated unfriendly numbers.
Output Format:
Output the answer in a single line.
I did a PHP programming like this:
<?php
/* Enter your code here. Read input from STDIN. Print output to STDOUT */
$handle = fopen ("php://stdin","r");
$input = fgets($handle);
$num_unfriendly_number=substr($input,0,1);
$friendly_number=substr($input,2,1);
$input2=fgets($handle);
for($i=0;$i<=($num_unfriendly_number); $i=$i+2){
$unfriendly_numbers[$i]=substr($input2,$i,1);
}
//truncates additional input
//now getting divisiors of given friendly numbers
$check_num=1;
//one is always a divisor of any number
$divisior[0]=1;
$arrayindex=1;
for($check_num; $check_num<=$friendly_number; $check_num++){
$hold_var=$friendly_number%$check_num;
if($hold_var==0){
$divisor[$arrayindex]=$check_num;
$arrayindex++;
}
}
$index=0;
foreach($divisor as $test_div){
$output=true;
foreach($unfriendly_numbers as $test_unfrnd){
if($test_unfrnd%$test_div){
$output=false;
}
}
if ($output){
$outputarray[$index]=$test_div;
$index++; //edited afterwards after #Boris's suggestion but didn't work :(
}
}
$num_of_output=count($outputarray);
define('STDOUT',fopen("php://stout","r"));
fwrite(STDOUT,$num_of_output);
?>
The above programme worked fine for 2 testcases but did not applied for other tests. I did some research but did not found any errors. Any helps please. Thanks in advance.
Fist of all I would like to mention that I do not know php. However, I think this is simple enough I can try to help.
Several errors I see:
for($i=0;$i<=($num_unfriendly_number); $i=$i+2){
$unfriendly_numbers[$i]=substr($input2,$i,1);
}
Here you use substr($input2,$i,1);, this however assumes all your unfriendly numbers are digits, which might not always be the case. Better use the split function in php. Replace the whole while with the following:
$unfriendly_numbers = explode(" ", $input2);
After that:
$index=0;
foreach($divisor as $test_div){
$output=true;
foreach($unfriendly_numbers as $test_unfrnd){
if($test_unfrnd%$test_div){
$output=false;
}
}
if ($output){
$outputarray[$index]=$test_div;
}
}
Here you never increase the $index variable. Isn't this meaning that you will override the divisors one with other? USe the operator []=. It appends to an array in php:
if ($output){
$outputarray []= $test_div;
}
EDIT One more error I see is that you count on the friendly number to be a digit too. You can fix this too:
$friendly_number=substr($input,2,1);
->
$friendly_number=explode(" ", $input)[0];
I have the same problem I can't understand why this code can't finish in less than 16 seconds!
I would like to hear your tricks
a = raw_input()# this will read this line: 8 16
b = raw_input()# this will read this line: 2 5 7 4 3 8 3 18
al = a.split()
bl = b.split()
blint = []
fn = int(al[1])
fnlist = [fn]
half_fn = fn / 2 # only I go to half the number to save some time
k = 1
while k <= half_fn:
if fn % k == 0:
fnlist.append(k)
k += 1
plist = []
for j in bl:
blint.append(int(j)) # here I changed the bl list elements which are string to int
for i in fnlist:
for j in blint: #I have the int elements so I don't need every time bring the string and change it to int
if j % i == 0:
plist.append(i)
break
counter = len(fnlist) - len(plist)
print counter
given a script that generates a string of 12 characters randomly generated, how many possibilities there are for two string to be equal?
function rand_string( $length ) {
$chars = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789";
$size = strlen( $chars );
for( $i = 0; $i < $length; $i++ ) {
$str .= $chars[ rand( 0, $size - 1 ) ];
}
return $str;
}
Assuming, A-Za-z0-9, there are 62 possible character values. Therefore, there are 62^12 (to-the-power-of) possible strings. That's roughly 3x10^21 (3 with 21 zeros).
Assuming a perfect random number generator, that's a 1 in 3x10^21 chance that any two particular strings will be equal.
Given that code and a length of 12, there are 6212 possible values. So (assuming a perfectly uniform random number generator, which rand() probably isn't) the chances are 1 in 3226266762397899821056 that a single call to that function will return any arbitrary 12-character string.
OTOH, if you are calling the function repeatedly and want to know how long until you are likely to get a repeat of any previously returned value, you would have to call it about 6.7e+10 times to have a 50% chance of a collision (again, assuming a uniform random number generator). You can get a reasonable approximation of the number of calls required for any collision probability p between 0 and 1 by calculating sqrt(-ln(1 - p) * 2 * 6212).
This falls under the Birth Paradox (how many people do you need in a room to have a 50% chance of two or more people having the same birthday).
Your 12-long 62-char strings come out to be about 72 bits. With the approximate detailed here, you can expect to generate about SQRT((pi / 2) * 62^12)) = 7.112x10^10 strings before getting a collision. So about 1 in 70 billion.
I'm writing an algorithm in PHP to solve a given Sudoku puzzle. I've set up a somewhat object-oriented implementation with two classes: a Square class for each individual tile on the 9x9 board, and a Sudoku class, which has a matrix of Squares to represent the board.
The implementation of the algorithm I'm using is a sort of triple-tier approach. The first step, which will solve only the most basic puzzles (but is the most efficient), is to fill in any squares which can only take a single value based on the board's initial setup, and to adjust the constraints accordingly on the rest of the unsolved squares.
Usually, this process of "constant propagation" doesn't solve the board entirely, but it does solve a sizable chunk. The second tier will then kick in. This parses each unit (or 9 squares which must all have unique number assignments, e.g. a row or column) for the "possible" values of each unsolved square. This list of possible values is represented as a string in the Square class:
class Square {
private $name; // 00, 01, 02, ... , 86, 87, 88
private $peers; // All squares in same row, col, and box
private $number; // Assigned value (0 if not assigned)
private $possibles; // String of possible numbers (1-9)
public function __construct($name, $p = 0) {
$this->name = $name;
$this->setNumber($p);
if ($p == 0) {
$this->possibles = "123456789";
}
}
// ... other functions
Given a whole array of unsolved squares in a unit (as described in the second tier above), the second tier will concatenate all the strings of "possibles" into a single string. It will then search through that single string for any unique character values - values which do not repeat themselves. This will indicate that, within the unit of squares, there is only one square that can take on that particular value.
My question is: for implementing this second tier, how can I parse this string of all the possible values in a unit and easily detect the unique value(s)? I know I could create an array where each index is represented by the numbers 1-9, and I could increment the value at the corresponding index by 1 for each possible-value of that number that I find, then scan the array again for any values of 1, but this seems extremely inefficient, requiring two linear scans of an array for each unit, and in a Sudoku puzzle there are 27 units.
This is somewhat like what you have already ruled out as "extremely inefficient", but with builtin functions so it might be quite efficient:
$all_possibilities = "1234567891234";
$unique = array();
foreach (count_chars($all_possibilities, 1) as $c => $occurrences) {
if ($occurrences == 1)
$unique[] = chr($c);
}
print join("", $unique) . "\n";
Prints: "56789"
Consider using a binary number to represent your "possibles" instead, because binary operations like AND, OR, XOR tend to be much faster than string operations.
E.g. if "2" and "3" are possible for a square, use the binary number 000000110 to represent the possibilities for that square.
Here's how you could find uniques:
$seenonce = 0;
$seenmore = 0;
foreach(all_possibles_for_this_unit as $possibles) {
$seenmore |= ($possibles & $seenonce);
$seenonce |= $possibles;
}
$seenonce ^= $seenmore;
if ($seenonce) {
//something was seen once - now it must be located
}
I'm not sure if this method will actually work faster but it's worth looking into.
function singletonsInString($instring) {
$results = array();
for($i = 1; $i < 10; $i++) {
$first_pos = strpos($instring, str($i));
$last_pos = strrpos($instring, str($i));
if ( $first_pos !== FALSE and $first_pos == $last_pos )
$results[] = $i;
}
return $results;
}
That'll give you every singleton. Get the first and last positions of a number in that array, and if they match and aren't both FALSE (strict comparison in case there's a singleton right at the start) then there's only one such number in that array.
If you're super super worried about speed here, you can probably replace the interior of that loop with
$istr = str($i);
if ( ($first = strpos($instring, $istr)) !== FALSE
and $first == $strrpos($instring, $istr) ) $results[] = $i;
for a minimum number of computations. Well, assuming PHP's native strpos is the best way to go about these things, which as far as I know is not unreasonable.
The last time I fooled with Sudoku solving, I had a third class called "Run". A Run instance is created for each row, col and 3x3 square. Every square has three runs associated with it. The Run class contains the set of numbers not yet placed within the run. Solving the board then involves intersecting the sets at each square iteratively. This takes care of 80% of most medium boards and 60% of most hard boards. Once you've gone through the whole board with no changes, you can move on to higher level logic. Each time your higher level logic fills a square, you run through your squares again.
The nice thing about this setup is you can easily add variants to the solver. Say you use the variant where the two diagonals are also unique. You just add a 4th run to those 18 squares.
What I would do, is actually use binary bits for storing actual values as another answer suggested. That allows to do efficient checks and in general might lend Sudoku itself to more mathematical(=efficient and shorter) solution (just my impression, I have not researched this).
Basically, you represent the numbers in squares not with digits, but with powers of 2
"1" = 2^0 = 1 = 000000001
"2" = 2^1 = 2 = 000000010
"3" = 2^2 = 4 = 000000100
"4" = 2^3 = 8 = 000001000
... etc up to
"9" = 2^8 = 256= 100000000
this way, you can simply add contents' of single squares to find out what numbers are missing in a 3x3 or a row or any other subset of sudoku, like this:
// shows the possibles for 3x3 square number 1 (00-22)
$sum=0;
for ($i=0; $i< 3; $i++)
for ($j=0; $j < 3; $j++)
$sum += $square["${i}${j}"]->number
$possibles = $sum ^ 511 // ^ stands for bitwise XOR and 511 is binary 11111111
now the $possibles contains "1" in bit positions of digits that are possible in this square and you can do bitwise operations with the results for other squares to match them together, like this:
eg. let's say:
$possibles1 = 146 // is binary 100100101,
//indicating that this row or 3x3 square has place for "9", "6", "3" and "1"
$possibles2 = 7 // is binary 000000111, indicating it has place for "3", "2" and "1".
// so:
$possibles1 & $possibles2
// bitwise AND, will show binary 101 saying that "3" and "1" is unfilled in both bloces
$possibles1 | $possibles2
// bitwise OR will give that in total it is possible to use "9", "6", "3", "2" and "1" in those two squares together
Here is a way using only PHP built-in functions which should be pretty fast.
function getUniques($sNumbers)
{
return join(array_keys(array_count_values(str_split($sNumbers)),1));
}
echo getUniques("1234567891234"); // return 56789;