masking string 4

[josoers]

i have written the following PHP function that masks a string with ***'s and then unveils 1/3 of its original letters to form a hint:

$length = strlen($answer);
$hint = "";
for ($x=0;$x<$length;$x++){
$hint .= "*";
}
for ($x=0;$x<($length/3);$x++){
$ran = rand(0,$length-1);
$hint[$ran] = $answer[$ran];


Now I need this in perl. I tried this:

$length = length($answer);
$lower=0;
$upper=$length;
$hint = "";
for ($x=0;$x<$length;$x++){
$hint .= "*";
}
for ($x=0;$x<($lengte/3);$x++){
$ran = int(rand( $upper-$lower+1 ) ) + $lower;
substr($hint, $ran, $ran) = substr($antwoord, $ran, $ran);

the masking to **** works but the unveiling doesnt work properly. Now I know nothing about perl so most probably theres an easy and correct way, could someone show me?

thanks

 

[PaulTEG]

($lengte/3) <- could this be the problem. Also, please use

 tags when posting code, thanks

--Paul

cigless ...

 

[duncdude]

your random number generator is wrong also - only one argument required


Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[josoers]

oops no sorry I forgot to rename that one for this post, I changed the variables to english for better reading. So that one should be $length

 

[duncdude]

i have to be honest...

substr($hint, $ran, $ran) = substr($antwoord, $ran, $ran);

i have not got a clue what this means!?


Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[josoers]

the generator works, it does have one argument. I used that in another chunk of code as well

 

[josoers]

well thats just my lack of knowledge of perl...

in PHP i have this

$hint[$ran] = $answer[$ran];

this replaces the $ran'th element of the mask string with the $ran'th element of the original string, showing part of the original string in the mask string.

i thought i could do this in perl as well.. but i think it is wrong yes..

 

[duncdude]

josoers

try running a portion of your script:-

#!/usr/bin/perl

$length = 10;

$ran = rand(0,$length-1);

Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[josoers]

$antwoord should be read as $answer.. forgot to rename that one too

 

[duncdude]

josoers

i'm not having a go at you - i'm just trying to tell you that this is not valid Perl syntax - or i am too pissed to understand the script!


Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[duncdude]

please tell me what you are trying to achieve with this line:-

substr($hint, $ran, $ran) = substr($antwoord, $ran, $ran);


Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[duncdude]

i.e. you have no offset or length parameters so why bother using substr?

you are not aiming to get a part of a string - so substr seems a bizarre choice to me? in fact it is so bizarre i am wondering if i am missing the point...


Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[josoers]

say i have $answer = 'apple'

what i want to achieve is getting the string masked and show only 1/3 of the original letters and place this in $hint

So $hint could be *p*** or **p*e

It seemed to me that when $ran was 2 for example, this line

substr($hint, $ran, $ran) = substr($answer, $ran, $ran);

would take the second letter of $answer and replace the * in $hint with that letter. Similar to
$hint[$ran] = $answer[$ran]; in PHP

 

[duncdude]

i am quite pissed - sorry for that

if you removed the $hint & $answer you would be left with

substr($ran, $ran) = substr($ran, $ran);

what is that going to achieve?


Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[josoers]

haha it's ok dude! Im not asking to validate this code as it probably is crap. Im not into perl. What im asking is a correct and easy way to achieve the masking goal.

In my vision substr($x, $ran, $ran) would be the $ran'th letter of the string $x?

 

[josoers]

which makes me think. It should be substr($x, $ran, 1) then

 

[josoers]

yeah that was the problem.. got it sorted now, thanks anyway!

$length = length($answer);
$lower= 0; 
$upper= $length; 
$hint = "";
for ($x=0;$x<$length;$x++){
$hint .= "*";
}
for ($x=0;$x<($length/3);$x++){
$ran = int(rand( $upper-$lower+1 ) ) + $lower; 
substr($hint, $ran, 1) = substr($answer, $ran, 1);
}

 

[KevinADC]

a different way of doing the same thing:

my $word = 'scientific';
my @word = split(//,$word);
my @hint = ('*') x scalar(@word);
for (0 .. scalar(@word)/3) {
   my $index = int(rand @word);
   redo if $hint[$index] ne '*';
   $hint[$index] = $word[$index];
}
print join('',@hint);

 

[KevinADC]

works a little better like this:

my $word = 'scientific';
my @word = split(//,$word);
my @hint = ('*') x scalar(@word);
for (0 .. [b](scalar(@word)/3)-1[/b]) {
   my $index = int(rand @word);
   redo if $hint[$index] ne '*';
   $hint[$index] = $word[$index];
}
print join('',@hint);
[code]

 

[KevinADC]

oops, I messed up the code tags