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phpstringnumberstranslationconverters

Translate non-digital characters to specific digits

Is it possible to convert characters in a string into specific numbers like

a = 1,  // uppercase too
b = 2,  
c = 3,  
d = 4,  
e = 5,  // and so on til letter 'z'

space = 0 // I'm not sure about if space really is equals to 0

Here's how I think it goes.

$string_1 = "abed";   // only string
$string_2 = "abed 5"; // with int

$result_1 = convert_to_int($string_1); // output is 1254
$result_2 = convert_to_int($string_2); // output is 125405
Solution

  • Create an array, and insert a space to the first element. Then use range() to generate an array with a to z. Use strtolower() to force the input to lowercase (as the characters from range() we generate is lowercase too.

    Then do a replacement with str_replace(), which accepts arrays as values. The keys is the value that the value will be replaced with.

    function convert_to_int($string) {;
    $characters = array_merge([' '], range('a', 'z'));
    return str_replace(array_values($characters), array_keys($characters), $string);
}