Question

I am trying to use a formula which requires me to mix the characters of a variable around. I am fairly new to PHP and am slightly confused with the lack of format specifications like in other languages.

the php script is being passed/(POST) two objective-c integers from my app, here is my php code I have so far, its pretty simple its more of a proof of concept and figuring out if the variable coming into my script is still int or a string or whatever the heck it might be.. slightly confused with php and the lack of having to declare format specifications etc.

<?php

$inputDate = $_REQUEST['userDate']; //example of whats coming in 12345678

//swap the 4 characters around
//23416587 (this is not random)


//then send result back

?>

So, the first question would be, when $inputDate is instantiated with ‘12345678’ is it an integer? or can I still perform string manipulation to mix the numbers like I have shown above?

Answer 1

The original value of $_REQUEST['userDate']; is probably a string. To be safe, cast it with (string)$_REQUEST['userDate'] or append an empty string. To get the order you desire, you could do:

$inputDate = (string)$_REQUEST['userDate'];

//12345678 to 23416587

$formatted_date = $inputDate[1].$inputDate[2].$inputDate[3].
                  $inputDate[0].$inputDate[5].$inputDate[4].
                  $inputDate[7].$inputDate[6];

//use (int) or intval() if you need it to be an integer first
//then send back to your app

Since you are fairly new to PHP, let me just say that var_dump and error reporting are your friends:

<?php

ini_set('display_errors', 'on');
error_reporting(E_ALL);