Code Challenge: Enhancing a Simple PHP Application > Paginating a List Controller > Adjusting Invalid Numbers (1 of 1)

For some reason, I feel that before I EVEN ASK, that this is NOT quite on the right track??? Although, the feedback that I'm get back after running it says, "You are including too many numbers in category (b). Please try again." ???

<?php

require_once('model.php'); $numbers = get_numbers();

$count_less_than_one           = 0;
$count_between_one_and_thousand = 0;
$count_greater_than_thousand    = 0;

foreach ($numbers as $number) {

******** if($number <= $count_less_than_one) { ******* $number = $count_less_than_one; $count_less_than_one += 1; } else { $count_between_one_and_thousand += 1; }

    $count_greater_than_thousand += 1;
}

include('view.php');

?>

I always find it helpful to try to talk through what you want to accomplish out loud in sentences. Imagine you had a deck of 1000 cards with a single number printed on their face. (That's essentially what this array of numbers is.) You want to sort them into three piles: one pile with numbers less than one, one pile with numbers between 1 and 1000 inclusive, and one pile with numbers greater than 1000. What would you do?

You would go through the cards one at a time. Let's say the number was 5001. What would you ask yourself to determine what pile it goes in? If the number itself is less than 1, then I would put it in one pile. If the number itself is greater than or equal to one and less than or equal to one thousand, then I would put it in the second pile. If the number itself is greater than one thousand, then I would put it in the third pile. Make sense?

A foreach loop goes through the cards one at a time and executes the same code for each of them. This code ...

foreach ($numbers as $number) {

... looks at every number in the array one at a time. It loads the one we're currently looking at into a variable called $number, and then it will execute the code inside the foreach loop once for each number.

How do we check if the number we are looking at is less than one? With a conditional, like this:

if ($number < 1) {

Anything we write inside that conditional will only get executed if the number is less than one. When the code challenge starts, this code is getting executed for every number:

$count_less_than_one += 1;

But we only want it to get executed when the number is less than one! So we put it inside the conditional:

if ($number < 1) {
    $count_less_than_one += 1;
}

Does that all make sense?

By the way, you can get your code to format nicely in this forum by typing four back-ticks before it like this:

````
code goes here
````

NOT quite getting there. Does my logic appear correct??

Results: (Less than 1) - 0 (Between 1-1000) - 412 (Greater than 1000) - 0

'''''''''''''''' <?php

require_once('model.php'); $numbers = get_numbers();

$count_less_than_one           = 0;
$count_between_one_and_thousand = 0;
$count_greater_than_thousand    = 0;

foreach ($numbers as $number) {
                    if($number < 1) {
    $count_less_than_one = 0;
    $number = $count_less_than_one;
                } elseif ($number <= 1000) { 
    $count_between_one_and_thousand += 1;
    $number = $count_between_one_and_thousand;
                }   else { 
    $count_greater_than_thousand = 0;
    $number =  $count_greater_than_thousand;
                }

    }

''''''''''''''

include('view.php');

The code inside the foreach loop is going to execute over and over, one time for each number in the array. Since there are one thousand numbers in the array, it will execute one thousand times.

The $number variable contains the current number that we are looking at. It will change each time by the foreach loop automatically; you don't have to change it.

The $count_less_than_one variable contains the count of numbers that are less than one. If the number is less than one, you want to add one to the current count. Inside the foreach loop, you wouldn't want to set this to zero.

The code should essentially look like this:

$count_less_than_one = 0;
foreach ($numbers as $number) {
    if($number < 1) {
        $count_less_than_one += 1;
    }
}

Here's how I would describe what this code does: "Let's start by setting the variable that will hold our count equal to zero. Let's next loop through all the elements in the $numbers array one at a time. Let's look at the first element first. If it is less than 1, then let's add one to the count variable. Then let's look at the second element. If it is less than 1, then let's add one to the count variable. Then let's look at the third element. If it is less than 1 ... etc."

At the end of this code, we'll have looked at each number one at a time to see if it is less than 1. Every time the number is greater than one, we add one to our count variable. There are actually 234 numbers in that array that are less than one thousand, so at the end of this code the count variable will be equal to 234.

Does that help?

Thanks Randy, once I again. As usual, I managed to figure it AFTER I sought help from the forum this LAST time...

Why isn't this working:

foreach ($numbers as $number) {

            if ($number < 1){
                $count_less_than_one += 1;
      {
        if ($number >= 1 && $number <= 1000){
             $count_between_one_and_thousand += 1;
     }

            if ($number > 1000){
        $count_greater_than_thousand += 1;

    }


}

I actually figured it out yesterday...the code should be:

foreach ($numbers as $number) { if ($number < 1){ $count_less_than_one += 1;

  elseif ($number >= 1 && $number <= 1000){
         $count_between_one_and_thousand += 1;

  else ($number > 1000){
    $count_greater_than_thousand += 1;
      }
}

} However, thanks for looking it over George. I appreciate your help.

You don't have to use an elseif, but that works just fine. (That probably more accurately maps to the sorting cards metaphor, since a card could only go in one pile.) I would have written it like this:

foreach ($numbers as $number) {

    if ($number < 1) {
        $count_less_than_one += 1;
    }

    if ($number >= 1 && $number <= 1000) {
        $count_between_one_and_thousand += 1;
    }

    if ($number > 1000) {
        $count_greater_than_thousand += 1;
    }

}

you need an operator to connect these two statements :)

Ahhh! Thank you Perry! That makes sense. :)

Good Grief!....Thanks. If I told you how long I checked over this simple code looking at every detail you would laugh.....

You know what George?? I FEEL that....LOL..Thanks for the feedback.

I probably wouldn't laugh, but I might smile: it can be great to learn through struggling sometimes.

LOL...Thanks Randy You are INDEED, absolutely right about that. Speaking of which, for some reason, I haven't been able to get RUBY and Rails installed RIGHT. ( in order to proceed to the Ruby on Rails course.) I mean, I followed the directions dictated by the course: installed rails (all the scaffolds, etc.) AND ruby. However, as I got into the development and everything, the Rails server kept erroring. So...I'm going to "reverse" my installation, and start over. I just would hope to obtain feedback and direction this time, in order to get it right. Any suggestions??

Hey Warren Johnson,

If you run into trouble installing Rails, you should be able to post here on the forums and get some help. (I know getting everything set up and running can be a bit of a hurdle, and that's a problem that would be really great to get figured out.)