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I need to validate a number.
nnn.nn.nn
Rules:
Three sections
Each section can contain only numbers
Each section can have any amount of numbers
Each section is seperated by a .
Now i have seen some type of validation, but im not sure how they string together?
Is there any assistance i can get?
ILMV :thumb:
You should use a regular expression:
PHP Code:$regexp = "/([0-9]+)\.([0-9]+)\.([0-9]+)/";
if (preg_match($regexp,$string,$matches)) {
/* matches is now an array contiaing each component*/
print_r($matches);
}
Can't you split a string entered by a character (I recall - haven't done any php for 3 wks .. might try tonight).
That creates an array - then you check that all the array elements are numeric.
If not - fail it ...
If so - continue on...
Different way :)
Probably. But remember PHP is a interpreted scripting language. The more you can make the PHP engine do with less code, the better. Efficiency is important on any website, and crucial on high-traffic sites.
There is a slight over head associated with regular expressions as PHP needs to compile them before executing. This makes the code about 30% slow than loading the string into an array and manually checking each component.
However, once a regular expression has been compiled by the script, it is then cached. When the cached regular expression is used, it is about 60% quicker.
Have a look below at the three tests:
http://adam.codedv.com/examples/speed/speed_test.php
If you run PHP as a module, the compiled regular expressions are shared among scripts. If you are running PHP as a CGI, each expression must be compiled once for each script execution.