Comparing the characters of 2 variables


 
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# 1  
Old 09-20-2011
Comparing the characters of 2 variables

hi
i am writing a hangman script and am having trouble checking the correct letters against the word
i need the script to compare the word against the letters guessed that are correct so once all the letters within the word have been guessed it will alow me to create a wining senario

eg

word
hello

guessed
adhewlso

this would be a correct result because all the letters within the word have been guessed

any help would be appreciated im stumped by this
# 2  
Old 09-20-2011
you want to enter letters one by one or user have to pass list of letters?

---------- Post updated at 10:22 AM ---------- Previous update was at 10:22 AM ----------

I will write a perl program and post it tomorrow.
# 3  
Old 09-20-2011
What's your system? What's your shell? If your shell doesn't even have substring operations this could be painful, if it has arrays, it's a snap.

If you can avoid it, a string might not be the best way to handle this, how about an array? The computer has an array like ( k i t t e n ), the user gets an array full of ( '' '' '' '' '' '' ). Whenever the user types a letter, loop through the 'kitten' array to see if the letter matches, and if it does, fill it into the user array.

Otherwise you could do this with substring operations, looping through "kitten" one by one and comparing it to an array full of spaces, if it matches replace one space by the letter. How to do this depends on your shell -- not all of them even have string operations...
# 4  
Old 09-20-2011
a user enters the letters to guess the word the check is to make sure the letters in the word have been guessed i am working on something loops to check each letter of the word with the letters guessed if the letter is found it will print the letter if it isnt it will just print " -"

i am not aloud to use arrays

and it is in bash
# 5  
Old 09-20-2011
"not allowed"? Is this homework?
# 6  
Old 09-20-2011
no this is not homework
i am a trainee developer at fdm group (google it )
and this is an exercise i have volentarily taken on as a learning exercise
there is no marking it is for my own personal development on an area i have never had experience with
# 7  
Old 09-20-2011
OK.

Since you have bash, you have string operations, so:

Code:
#!/bin/bash

STR="kitten"
GUESS="${STR//[a-z]/_}" # Replace all [a-z] with _

while [ "$GUESS" != "$STR" ]
do
        IN=""
        while [ "${#IN}" -ne 1 ] || [ ! -z "${IN/[a-z]}" ]
        do
                printf "${GUESS} Enter a character, then ENTER: "
                read IN
        done

        # Loop through every character in $STR.
        for((N=0; N<${#STR}; N++))
        do
                if [ "${STR:$N:1}" = "$IN" ]
                then
                        if [ "${GUESS:$N:1}" = "$IN" ]
                        then
                                echo "You already guessed that!"
                                break;
                        fi
                        # i.e. replacing the first 't' in kitten.
                        # ${GUESS:0:$N} gets 'ki'.
                        # ${GUESS:$((N+1))} gets 'ten'.
                        # We stick our guess, $IN, in the middle.
                        GUESS="${GUESS:0:$N}${IN}${GUESS:$((N+1))}"
                fi
        done
done

echo "You got it!  $GUESS"

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