Put different characters before every char in a string (odd request I know..)

[Richard]

If you have the string "blah blah bleh", I want PHP to put different letters before every letter in the string, so that it ends up looking like "AbBlCaDh EbFlGaHh IbJlKeLh". Then when it gets to Z on the string, I want it to start with A again. I know this is an odd request, but there's a reason :)

[Kid Charming]

Off the top of my head, I'd do it like this:


function insertLetters($string)
{
$letter = 65; //ascii code for 'A'
$str_length = strlen($string); //get length of string for loop
$chars_added = 0; //number of chars we've added to string

for( $i=0;$i<$str_length;$i++ )
{
$string_place = $i + $chars_added;

//check that you're only adding to a letter,
//not some other char or space
if( preg_match('/[a-zA-Z]/',substr($string,$string_place,1)) )
{
//convert the letter from ascii and insert into $string
$string = substr_replace($string,chr($letter),$string_place,0);

//increment letter counter
if( $letter == 90) //90 is 'Z'
{
$letter = 65; //wrap to 'A'
}
else
{
$letter++;
}

$chars_added++;
}
}

return $string;
}

[Richard]

That's excellent.. just what I needed.. thanks :)

Final question.. I need it to add a character before every inserted letter. So it would end up looking like:

-AB-Bl-Ca-Dh -Eb-Fl-Ga-Hh -Ib-Jl-Ke-Lh

Original string is in bold. I have tried:

$string = substr_replace($string,chr(45)chr($letter),$string_place,0);

But it throws an error :/

[Kid Charming]

Try


$string = substr_replace($string,'-' . chr($letter),$string_place,0);


Since it looks like it's the same character every time, we don't need to use ascii. We're ascii-fying the letters because it's a lot easier to increment and wrap the numbers and then convert. You'll also need to change


$chars_added++;


to


$chars_added = $chars_added + 2;


Otherwise, $string_place will no longer be accurate, and your inserts won't be where they're supposed to be.