This problem might not occure in English, but does really hurt in Polish language. I guess that my question is mostly for Polish users since they might already have a decent solution.
What I mean, is that the verbs in Polish language, are different for male and female in past time. And there are dozens of different options. If my script need to display lots and lots of text - it really becomes a painful problem to deal with. Short example (not very elegant use of language, but for demonstration purpose):
Male: On poszedł i nie znalazł, więc klasnął w dłonie i nagle go coś pożarło.
Female: Ona poszła i nie znalazła, więc klasnęła w dłonie i nagle ją coś pożarło.
I managed to find such an solution: each time at the beginning of script, I prepare variable that looks like that:
$verb[$ending][$sex] = 'something';
//$ending does contain - for my convenience - letters that says what kind of eding am I changing, instead of numeric options
//Examples:
$verb['-a']['male'] = '';
$verb['-a']['female'] = 'a';
//works for On=>Ona, znalazł=>znalazła
$verb['al-ela']['male'] = 'ął';
$verb['al-ela']['female'] = 'ęła';
//works for klasnął=>klasnęła
Now if I add fact, that 99% of time I don't know from the beginning what kind of sex am I dealing with, my variable start look kinda scary: $verb['al-ela'][$_SESSION['user'.$id]['sex']]. So my end text does look like that:
O'.$verb['-a'][$_SESSION['user'.$id]['sex']].' posz'.$verb['edl-la'][$_SESSION['user'.$id]['sex']].' i nie znalazł'.$verb['-a'][$_SESSION['user'.$id]['sex']].', więc klasn'.$verb['al-ela'][$_SESSION['user'.$id]['sex']].' w dłonie i nagle '.$verb['go-ja'][$_SESSION['user'.$id]['sex']].' coś pożarło.
Yes, sure - this is rather extreme example, but sometimes text really does look like that and it is unavoidable.
To make long story short, here are my questions:
Am I doing it wrong? Is there a better/faster/more handy solution for such type of problems?
Is there a script that might detect/change endings for me without ruining rest of the text?
I struggled to find full list of possible ending variations in Polish (for both singular, and plural), so I'm creating my own list as I'm finding new options. Perhaps someone does have a list like that => it might help me to create script from my 2nd question.
Thanks a lot in advance, best regards!
I need to be able to generate debugging statements for my code. For example, here is some code I have:
$this->R->radius_ft = $this->TC->diameter / 24;
$this->R->TBETA2_rad = $this->D->beta2 / $rad; //Outer angle
$this->R->TBETA1_rad = $this->R->inner_beta1 / $rad; //Inner angle
I need to be able display results of computations so that they can be read by a human.
So far I have been doing this (example showing first line from above only):
$this->R->radius_ft = $this->TC->diameter / 24;
if (self::DEBUG)
print("radius_ft({$this->R->radius_ft}) = diameter({$this->TC->diameter}) / 24");
The above print something like radius_ft(1.4583) = diameter(35) / 24 and a few of those lines looks like equations and are nicely traceable when I want to verify things on paper, or if I want to expose the intermediate work of the computations to someone else.
The problem is that it is a pain to construct those debugging statements. I craft them by hand, and usually it is not a problem, but in my current example, there are hundreds of lines of code where this needs to be done. Much pain.
I was wondering if there are facilities in PHP that will allow me to make print-outs of statements showing what each line of code does. Or methods to semi-automate creating the debug lines for me.
I have so far discovered this method to cut down on some of the work .... use Macro facilities of a text editor.
Paste line of code into TextPad (or similar editor that supports macros). Record macro and use Search, Mark and Copy facilities to carefully navigate between special symbols of the variable, such as $, >, and symbols that are not alphanumeric or $, >, etc. while copying and extracting and pasting parts of variable to craft my particular statement.
Exact steps may differ for one's needs. My macro operates on one variable like $this->R->radius_ft with cursor at the start and ends up with something like radius_ft({$this->R->radius_ft}), with cursor a few chars after the end, sometimes coinciding with the next variable to process.
Perhaps same could be done with regular expressions but I like the way Macro does it - I can process a variable and go to the next one and just repeat the macro with a hot key combination. This takes out the most tedious chunk of work for me.
Alternatively - hand the person the code and let them figure it out. Teach them how to read code.
I've got a script which generates text. I need to be strip all repeated blocks of text. The string is in xml format, so I can use the beginning and ending tags to determine where the strings are. I've been using substr_replace to remove the unnecessary text... However, this only works if I know how many times said text is going to be present in the string. Example :
<container>
<string1>This is the first string.</string>
<string2>This is the second string.</string>
<stuff>This is the important stuff.</stuff>
</container>
That container might appear once, twice six times, seven times, whatever. The point is, it's necessary to only have it appear once in the string variable. Right now this is what I'm doing.
$where_begin = strpos($wsman_output,'<container');
$where_end = strpos($wsman_output,"</container>");
$end_length = strlen("</Envelope>");
$attack = $where_end - $where_begin;
$attack = $attack + $end_length;
$wsman_output = substr_replace($wsman_output,"",$where_begin,$attack);
And I do that for each time the container exists.... However, I just found out that it's not always going to be the same.. Which really messes things up.
Any ideas?
In the end I decided to use the method suggested here.
I pulled each block of string I wanted from the variable, then combined them back together in the required order.
I have tried several regexes and still some valid postal codes sometimes get rejected.
Searching the internet, Wikipedia and SO, I could only find regex validation solutions.
Is there a validation method which does not use regex? In any language, I guess it would be easy to port.
I supose the easiest would be to compare against a postal code database, yet that would need to be maintained and updated periodically from a reliable source.
Edit: To help future visitors and keep you from posting any more regexes, here's a regex which I have tested (as of 2013-04-24) to work for all postal codes in Code Point (see #Mikkel Løkke's answer):
//PHP PCRE (it was on Wikipedia, it isn't there anymore; I might have modified it, don't remember).
$strPostalCode=preg_replace("/[\s]/", "", $strPostalCode);
$bValid=preg_match("/^(GIR 0AA)|(((A[BL]|B[ABDHLNRSTX]?|C[ABFHMORTVW]|D[ADEGHLNTY]|E[HNX]?|F[KY]|G[LUY]?|H[ADGPRSUX]|I[GMPV]|JE|K[ATWY]|L[ADELNSU]?|M[EKL]?|N[EGNPRW]?|O[LX]|P[AEHLOR]|R[GHM]|S[AEGKLMNOPRSTY]?|T[ADFNQRSW]|UB|W[ADFNRSV]|YO|ZE)[1-9]?[0-9]|((E|N|NW|SE|SW|W)1|EC[1-4]|WC[12])[A-HJKMNPR-Y]|(SW|W)([2-9]|[1-9][0-9])|EC[1-9][0-9])[0-9][ABD-HJLNP-UW-Z]{2})$/i", $strPostalCode);
I'm writing this answer based on the wiki page.
When checking on the validation part, it seems that there are 6 type of formats (A = letter and 9 = digit):
AA9A 9AA AA9A9AA AA9A9AA
A9A 9AA Removing space A9A9AA order it AA999AA
A9 9AA ------------------> A99AA -------------> AA99AA
A99 9AA A999AA A9A9AA
AA9 9AA AA99AA A999AA
AA99 9AA AA999AA A99AA
As we can see, the length may vary from 5 to 7 and we have to take in account some special cases if we want to.
So the function we are coding has to do the following:
Remove spaces and convert to uppercase (or lower case).
Check if the input is an exception, if it is it should return valid
Check if the input's length is 4 < length < 8.
Check if it's a valid postcode.
The last part is tricky, but we will split it in 3 sections by length for some overview:
Length = 7: AA9A9AA and AA999AA
Length = 6: AA99AA, A9A9AA and A999AA
Length = 5: A99AA
For this we will be using a switch(). From now on it's just a matter of checking character by character if it's a letter or a number on the right place.
So let's take a look at our PHP implementation:
function check_uk_postcode($string){
// Start config
$valid_return_value = 'valid';
$invalid_return_value = 'invalid';
$exceptions = array('BS981TL', 'BX11LT', 'BX21LB', 'BX32BB', 'BX55AT', 'CF101BH', 'CF991NA', 'DE993GG', 'DH981BT', 'DH991NS', 'E161XL', 'E202AQ', 'E202BB', 'E202ST', 'E203BS', 'E203EL', 'E203ET', 'E203HB', 'E203HY', 'E981SN', 'E981ST', 'E981TT', 'EC2N2DB', 'EC4Y0HQ', 'EH991SP', 'G581SB', 'GIR0AA', 'IV212LR', 'L304GB', 'LS981FD', 'N19GU', 'N811ER', 'NG801EH', 'NG801LH', 'NG801RH', 'NG801TH', 'SE18UJ', 'SN381NW', 'SW1A0AA', 'SW1A0PW', 'SW1A1AA', 'SW1A2AA', 'SW1P3EU', 'SW1W0DT', 'TW89GS', 'W1A1AA', 'W1D4FA', 'W1N4DJ');
// Add Overseas territories ?
array_push($exceptions, 'AI-2640', 'ASCN1ZZ', 'STHL1ZZ', 'TDCU1ZZ', 'BBND1ZZ', 'BIQQ1ZZ', 'FIQQ1ZZ', 'GX111AA', 'PCRN1ZZ', 'SIQQ1ZZ', 'TKCA1ZZ');
// End config
$string = strtoupper(preg_replace('/\s/', '', $string)); // Remove the spaces and convert to uppercase.
$exceptions = array_flip($exceptions);
if(isset($exceptions[$string])){return $valid_return_value;} // Check for valid exception
$length = strlen($string);
if($length < 5 || $length > 7){return $invalid_return_value;} // Check for invalid length
$letters = array_flip(range('A', 'Z')); // An array of letters as keys
$numbers = array_flip(range(0, 9)); // An array of numbers as keys
switch($length){
case 7:
if(!isset($letters[$string[0]], $letters[$string[1]], $numbers[$string[2]], $numbers[$string[4]], $letters[$string[5]], $letters[$string[6]])){break;}
if(isset($letters[$string[3]]) || isset($numbers[$string[3]])){
return $valid_return_value;
}
break;
case 6:
if(!isset($letters[$string[0]], $numbers[$string[3]], $letters[$string[4]], $letters[$string[5]])){break;}
if(isset($letters[$string[1]], $numbers[$string[2]]) || isset($numbers[$string[1]], $letters[$string[2]]) || isset($numbers[$string[1]], $numbers[$string[2]])){
return $valid_return_value;
}
break;
case 5:
if(isset($letters[$string[0]], $numbers[$string[1]], $numbers[$string[2]], $letters[$string[3]], $letters[$string[4]])){
return $valid_return_value;
}
break;
}
return $invalid_return_value;
}
Note that I've not added British Forces Post Office and non-geographic codes.
Usage:
echo check_uk_postcode('AE3A 6AR').'<br>'; // valid
echo check_uk_postcode('Z9 9BA').'<br>'; // valid
echo check_uk_postcode('AE3A6AR').'<br>'; // valid
echo check_uk_postcode('EE34 6FR').'<br>'; // valid
echo check_uk_postcode('A23A 7AR').'<br>'; // invalid
echo check_uk_postcode('A23A 7AR').'<br>'; // invalid
echo check_uk_postcode('WA3334E').'<br>'; // invalid
echo check_uk_postcode('A2 AAR').'<br>'; // invalid
As supplied by the UK government.
(GIR 0AA)|((([A-Z-[QVX]][0-9][0-9]?)|(([A-Z-[QVX]][A-Z-[IJZ]][0-9][0-9]?)|(([A-Z-[QVX]][0-9][A-HJKSTUW])|([A-Z-[QVX]][A-Z-[IJZ]][0-9][ABEHMNPRVWXY])))) [0-9][A-Z-[CIKMOV]]{2})
I've built London only postcode based apps using the postcodes I got from HERE. But to be honest, even with London postcodes only, you need a lot more storage than necessary. Sure, the idea is trivial.
Store the postcodes, take the user input or whatever, and see if you get a match. But you are complicating the solution far more than you think. I HAD to use actual postcodes to achieve what I wanted, but for simple validation purposes, as hard as "maintaining" a regex is, storing tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands(if not more) and validating more or less in real-time is a far more difficult task.
If a mini distributed service sounds like a more efficient solution than a regex, go for it, but I'm sure it isn't. Unless you need geo-spatial querying of your own data against UK postcodes or things like that, I doubt DB storage is a feasible solution. Just my 2 cents.
Update
According to this index, there are 1,758,417 postcodes in the UK. I can tell you I am using a few Mongo clusters (Amazon EC2 High Memory Instances) to provide reliable London only services(indexing only London postcodes), and it's quite a pricy thing, even with basic storage.
Admittedly, the app is performing medium complexity geo-spatial queries, but the storage requirements alone are very expensive and demanding.
Bottom line, just stick to regex and be done with it in two minutes.
Im looking at the Postcodes in United Kingdom link in wikipedia right now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcodes_in_the_United_Kingdom
The Validation section lists six formats with a combination of letters and numbers. Then there's more information in the notes below that. The first thing that I would try is a BNF type grammar with a tool like GoldParserBuilder. You could describe the basic formats in a more readable format, with efficient parser and lexer automatically generated. In the past, I've successfully used such tools to avoid writing huge, ugly regexes.
From that point, the program has a properly formatted zip code of a known type. At this point, the specific numbers or letters might violate something. Each type of zip code can have a function programmed to look for violations of that specific type. The final product will consist of an automatically generated parser that passes unvalidated, but structured/identified, zip codes to a dedicated validation function. You can then refactor or optimize from there.
(You can also use the grammar itself to enforce or disallow certain literals and combinations. Whatever is more readable or comprehensible for you. Different people gravitate toward different ends of these things.)
Here's a page highlighting advantages of GOLD Parsing System.You can use any you like: I just promote this one b/c it's good at its job and has steadily improved over many years.
http://www.goldparser.org/about/why-use-gold.htm
I would think the RegEX, while long-winded would probably be the best solution if all you want to do is validate if something could be a valid UK post code.
If you need absolute data, consider using Ordnance Survey OpenData initiative "Code-Point® Open" dataset, which is a CSV of lots of data points in Great Britain (so not Northern Ireland I'm guessing) one of which is postcode. Be aware that the file is 20MB, so you may have to convert it to a more manageable format.
Regexes are hard to debug, hard to port from one regex flavor to another (silent "errors"), and hard to update.
That is true for most regexes, but why don't you just split it up into multiple parts? You can easily split it into six parts for the six different general rules and maybe even more if you take all of the special cases into account.
Creating a well-commented method of 20 lines with simple regexes is easy to debug (one simple regex per line) and also easy to update. The porting problem is the same, but on the other hand you do not need to use some fancy grammar lib.
Are third party services an option?
http://www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/address-validation/
GeoNames Database:
http://www.geonames.org/postal-codes/
+1 for the "why care" comments. I have had to use the 'official' regex in various projects and while I have never attempted to break it down, it works and it does the job. I've used it with Java and PHP code without any need to convert it between regex formats.
Is there a reason why you would have to debug it or break it down?
Incidentally, the regex rule used to be found on wikipedia, but it appears to have gone.
Edit: As for the space/no-space debate, the postcode should be valid with or without the space. As the last part of the postcode (after the space) is ALWAYS three digits, it is possible to insert the space manually, which will then allow you to run it through the regex rule.
Take the list of valid postcodes and check if the one entered is in it.
I'm writing code to generate character-based pagination. I have articles in my site that I want to split up based on length.
The code I have so far is working albeit two issues:
It's splitting pages in the middle of words and HTML tags; I want it to
only split after a complete word, tag, or a punctuation mark.
In the pagination bar, it's generating the wrong number of pages.
In the
pagination bar, it's generating the
wrong number of pages.
Need help addressing these two issues. Code follows:
$text = file_get_contents($View);
$ArticleLength = strlen($text);
$CharsPerPage = 5000;
$NoOfPages = round((double)$ArticleLength / (double)$CharsPerPage);
$CurrentPage = $this->ReturnNeededObject('pagenumber');
$Page = (isset($CurrentPage) && '' !== $CurrentPage) ? $CurrentPage : '1';
$PageText = substr($text, $CharsPerPage*($Page-1), $CharsPerPage);
echo $PageText, '<p>';
for ($i=1; $i<$NoOfPages+1; $i++)
{
if ($i == $CurrentPage)
{
echo '<strong>', $i, '</strong>';
}
else
{
echo '', $i, '';
}
echo ' | ';
}
echo '</p>';
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks, guys. I put in the fix for the 1st point and it worked beautifully.
Hm. I guess it is messy to do the second point. I've found some regex on-line. Will think, write, and get back to you when I make some progress.
Thanks again.
$NoOfPages = round((double)$ArticleLength / (double)$CharsPerPage);
That should use ceil instead of round - if you use round, 4.2 pages will only show 1-4 - you need a 5th page to show the last .2 of a page.
The other part is harder ... its common to use some sort of marker in the file to indicate where the page breaks go as no matter how clever your code, it can't appreciate where is a good break in then same way a human can.
If you insist on doing it suggest some logic that first works forwards/backwards to the nearest space when a page break is created, which isn't too tricky. More tricky is deciding when you are within a tag or not .... think you'll either need some fairly heavy regex, or else an HTML parsing tool.
You're calculating the number of pages wrong... you should be using ceil() not round() (for example 4.1 pages worth of text is still 5 pages to display).
To fix the other issue, you're going to have big problems if there's arbitrary HTML in there. For example, you need to know that <div>s and <p>s are OK to split, but <table>s aren't (unless you want to get really fancy)!
To do it properly you should use an HTML library to build a tree of elements and then go from there.
Based on your first statement,
It's splitting pages in the middle of words and HTML tags
it appears that your character count is being done after markup is inserted. That would imply that e.g. long URLs in links would be counted against the page length you're trying to achieve. However, you didn't say how the articles were being created initially.
I'd suggest looking for a point in the process of creating the article where you could examine the raw text. By regarding the actual content (without markup) as a set of paragraphs, and estimating the vertical length of each paragraph based on typical number of characters per line, you can come up with a more consistent sizing.
I would also consider only breaking between paragraphs, to keep units of thought together on the same page. Speaking as a reader, I really hate going to sites that force me to pause, hit a button or link, and wait for a page reload, all in the middle of a single thought.