Get your text spinner code here

d60eba · Feb 13, 2009

Hey all,

Ever tried to write a text spinner? Code that will turn {Text 1|Text 2} into

Text 1
Text 2

? Well, I found it pretty tricky. Here's the code I eventually came up with:

Code:

<?
//Save below as spinner.php
function create_checked_spin($text,$int=10) {

    //Check for OK implementation of spinner and then spin for text
    if(strstr($text,"{") && strstr($text,"|") || strstr($text,"}") && strstr($text,"|")) {
    $check = check_spin($text);
        if($check['result'] == false) {
            if($check['seps']) {
            $return['error'] = "<div class='notice' style='margin-top:2px;margin-bottom:2px;width:50%'>Error with Spinner. You have " . $check['seps'] . " seperator(s), but " . $check['divs'] . " curly bracket(s)</div>";
            } else {
            $return['error'] = "<div class='notice' style='margin-top:2px;margin-bottom:2px;width:50%'>Error with Spinner. You have " . $check['right'] . " right bracket(s), but " . $check['left'] . " left bracket(s)</div>";
            }
        } else {
        $return['spin'] = do_spin($text,$int);
        }
    }

return $return;


}


function check_spin($text) {

    //Make sure no funny business
    preg_match_all("/}/",$text,$right);    
    preg_match_all("/{/",$text,$left);
    preg_match_all("/\|/",$text,$divider);        
    
    $divs= count($right[0]) + count($left[0]);
    $seps = count($divider[0]);
    
    if($seps*2 != $divs) {
    //return array("seps"=>$seps,"divs"=>$divs,"result"=>false);
    }
    
    if(count($right[0]) != count($left[0])) {
    return array("right"=>count($right[0]),"left"=>count($left[0]),"result"=>false);
    }
    
    return array("result"=>true);

}

function do_spin($text,$int=1) {

    $return = array();

    //Mark paras
    $text = ereg_replace("\n","@@@PARA",$text);
    $text = ereg_replace("@@@PARA[\n\r\s]+@@@PARA","##PARA##",$text);    
    $text = ereg_replace("@@@PARA","",$text);    
    
    //Whitespace is bad
    $text = ereg_replace("[\r\t\n]","",$text);
    
    //Secret guru technique
    $text = "{" . $text . "|}";

    while((count($return) < $int) && $counter < 1000) {
            
        $marked_text = get_levels($text);
        $choices = create_choices_array($marked_text);
        $final_text = trim(process_choices_array($choices));        
        
            if($final_text) {
            $return[$final_text] = ereg_replace("##PARA##","\n\n",$final_text);
            }
            $counter++;    
                
    }
    
    return array_values($return);

}

function process_choices_array($choices) {

    $base = choose($choices[1]);
    while(strstr($base,"@@@CHOICE")) {
    
        preg_match("/@@@CHOICE([0-9]+)@@@/",$base,$matches);
        $base = str_replace($matches[0],choose($choices[$matches[1]]),$base);
    
    }

    return $base;

}

function choose($array) {

return $array['Choices'][array_rand($array['Choices'])];

}


function create_choices_array($marked_text) {


    $final_text = $marked_text['text'][count($marked_text['text'])];
    
    //Run through array in reverse order
    for($i=count($marked_text['text']);$i>0;$i--) {
    
        $regex = "/STARTMARKER".$i."@@@(.*?)@@@".$i."ENDMARKER/";
        preg_match($regex,$final_text,$matches);
        preg_match("@(.*)\|(.*)@",$matches[1],$choices);
        $choices = explode("|",$matches[1]);
        $output[$i] = array("Raw_Text"=>$matches[0],
                            "Text"=>$matches[1],
                            "Choices"=>$choices,
                             );
        $final_text = str_replace($matches[0],"@@@CHOICE$i@@@",$final_text);

    }

    return $output;

}



function get_levels($text) {

    $counter =0;
    while(strstr($text,"{") || strstr($text,"}")) {
    
    $_counter++;                        
        
        //echo $text . "\n";
    
        //Run throgh text
        for($i=0;$i<strlen($text);$i++) {
            $letter = $text{$i};
            
            
            if($letter == "{") {
            $left_count++;
            }
            
            if($letter == "}") {
            $right_count++;
            }
            
            if($left_count >0) {
            $sentence .= $letter;    
            }
                        
            if($left_count == $right_count && ($left_count >0)) {
                
                $counter++;    
                $return['level'][$counter] = $sentence;
                $_sentence = substr($sentence, 1); //Remove {
                $_sentence = substr($_sentence, 0, -1); //Remove {                
                $text = str_replace($sentence,"STARTMARKER".$counter."@@@$_sentence@@@".$counter."ENDMARKER",$text);
                $return['text'][$counter] = $text;
                $left_count = 0;
                $right_count = 0;                
                $sentence = "";
                break;
                
            }
            
        }    
    
    }
    
    return $return;

}

?>

Usage:

Code:

require_once("spinner.php");
$text = "{{Great|Awesome|Fantastic|Brilliant} {link|site|website} - {highly|thoroughly|totally} recommended|Terrible site, don't visit it}";
$desc = create_checked_spin($text,30); //Create 30 different spins
print_r($desc);

Output:

Code:

Array
(
    [spin] => Array
        (
            [0] => Great link - totally recommended
            [1] => Terrible site, don't visit it
            [2] => Brilliant website - thoroughly recommended
            [3] => Great link - thoroughly recommended
            [4] => Brilliant site - highly recommended
            [5] => Brilliant website - totally recommended
            [6] => Awesome website - totally recommended
            [7] => Great website - totally recommended
            [8] => Brilliant site - totally recommended
            [9] => Great site - totally recommended
            [10] => Awesome site - totally recommended
            [11] => Fantastic link - totally recommended
            [12] => Great website - highly recommended
            [13] => Awesome site - highly recommended
            [14] => Fantastic site - totally recommended
            [15] => Awesome website - highly recommended
            [16] => Fantastic site - highly recommended
            [17] => Fantastic link - highly recommended
            [18] => Great link - highly recommended
            [19] => Brilliant site - thoroughly recommended
            [20] => Fantastic website - highly recommended
            [21] => Brilliant link - totally recommended
            [22] => Fantastic link - thoroughly recommended
            [23] => Awesome site - thoroughly recommended
            [24] => Great site - thoroughly recommended
            [25] => Brilliant link - thoroughly recommended
            [26] => Brilliant link - highly recommended
            [27] => Fantastic website - totally recommended
            [28] => Awesome link - totally recommended
            [29] => Awesome link - highly recommended
        )

)

My code isn't overly quick though. I'd be interested to see how others have tackled the problem.

Cheers,

Leon

svakanda · Feb 26, 2009

nice share Leon thanks@! ima gonna save that for later

darbsllim · Feb 26, 2009

what application does this code have, got a working example in practice?

Webferret · Feb 26, 2009

christ almighty talk about mountains and molehills

LogicFlux · Feb 26, 2009

darbsllim said:
what application does this code have, got a working example in practice?

It's just to rewrite articles to avoid duplicate content penalties. Just write your article once but provide alternatives like:

I went to the {mall|titty bar} last night and was like wawaweewa I want that {poncho|ass}.

Spin it and you could end up with "I went to the titty bar last night and was like wawaweewa I want that poncho". But you could provide combos that make sense instead of listening to a retard like me on the internets.

Rage9 · Feb 26, 2009

Webferret said:
christ almighty talk about mountains and molehills

ROFL, true.

dogfighter · Feb 26, 2009

Thats a lot of code. I've got some PHP that does the same thing in just a few lines but I'm traveling right now and it's not on my laptop. If I remember to post it when I get home I'll do so.

stealthphreak · Feb 27, 2009

Thanks for the code,I had wanted to code something like this before for a small project.I thought it would be relatively simple and small,but boy was I wrong.

Webferret · Feb 27, 2009

u know what, if you tried real hard, you could probably turn that abortion into a 20,000 line code library that required a quad pentium and 4 terrabytes of memory...

FutureWEBSTORE · Feb 27, 2009

U guys are great logical writers. I would go off and hire a content writer for this spinning shit.

LogicFlux · Feb 27, 2009

This code does a lot of error checking.

Code:

$text = "{Great|Awesome|Fantastic|Brilliant} link|site|website} - {highly|thoroughly|totally} 


recommended|Terrible site, don't visit it}";

$desc = create_checked_spin($text,30); //Create 30 different spins
print_r($desc);

output

Code:

Array
(
    [error] => <div class='notice' style='margin-top:2px;margin-bottom:2px;width:50%'>Error with Spinner. You have 4 right bracket(s), but 2 left bracket(s)</div>
)

Freshvision · Mar 4, 2009

it would be good to show and a working example

indianman · Mar 5, 2009

Just saw this: a working example from Democratic party: I'm Sorry Rush
Pretty cute.

Seriously: here is something to start with: Andy's Madlib

d60eba · Mar 6, 2009

Webferret said:
christ almighty talk about mountains and molehills

u know what, if you tried real hard, you could probably turn that abortion into a 20,000 line code library that required a quad pentium and 4 terrabytes of memory...

Well, hence the post and me saying I found it tricky, it's slow, and I'd be interested to see how others did it.

Have anything constructive to add Mr Ferret?

Rage9 · Mar 6, 2009

d60eba said:
Well, hence the post and me saying I found it tricky, it's slow, and I'd be interested to see how others did it.

Have anything constructive to add Mr Ferret?

I have something to add, its ridged as fuck. If I didn't have better things to work on I'd do it myself.

d60eba · Mar 6, 2009

Rage9 said:
I have something to add, its ridged as fuck. If I didn't have better things to work on I'd do it myself.

Constructive I said.

But, yeah, we know, but that was the whole point of the thread; I posted some code that works but is admittedly inelegant and slow. I was wondering if anyone could do it better. Anyone?

(Rage, I'm sure you could do the same thing within a few lines if you weren't working on something very important. That goes without saying - you don't need to remind us)

underwor1d · Mar 6, 2009

shouldnt this thread be on dp?

intermanic · Mar 6, 2009

One liner FTW

PHP:

 preg_replace('/\{([^}]*)}/e',"eval('\$a=explode(\"|\",\"\\1\");shuffle(\$a);return array_pop(\$a);')",$spin);

kblessinggr · Mar 6, 2009

intermanic said:
One liner FTW

PHP:

preg_replace('/\{([^}]*)}/e',"eval('\$a=explode(\"|\",\"\\1\");shuffle(\$a);return array_pop(\$a);')",$spin);

$pWnD;

Rage9 · Mar 6, 2009

d60eba said:
Constructive I said.

But, yeah, we know, but that was the whole point of the thread; I posted some code that works but is admittedly inelegant and slow. I was wondering if anyone could do it better. Anyone?

(Rage, I'm sure you could do the same thing within a few lines if you weren't working on something very important. That goes without saying - you don't need to remind us)

Yeah my bad, I get feisty when it's late and I'm wasted. Didn't mean anything by it.

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