I have a standard multi dimensional array listed below that will house my customers faq articles. The articles will include a title, a description and various tags per article. I am trying to setup a form on my website where a visitor can search any content inside the array. If there is a match, the site will return the article that matched the tag that was searched for.
My questions.
Here is my array.
function get_articles_all() {
$articles = array();
$articles[0] = array(
"title" => "What port does the Cisco TSP use?",
"body" => "TAPI talks to the TAPI Service Provider (TSP) and the TSP talks to the CTI manager through port 2748.",
"tag" => array("port","cisco")
);
$articles[1] = array(
"title" => "Title of second article.",
"body" => "Body of second article. Body of second article. Body of second article. Body of second article. Body of second article. Body of second article. Body of second article. Rocky.",
"tag" => array("second","number2")
);
$articles[2] = array(
"title" => "Title of third article.",
"body" => "Body of third article. Body of third article. Body of third article. Body of third article. Body of third article. Body of third article. Body of third article. Rocky.",
"tag" => array("third","number3")
);
return $articles;
}
Here is my search function.
function article_tag_search($t) {
$tagResults = array();
$all = get_articles_all();
foreach ($all as $article => $key) {
if (stripos($key,$t) !== false) {
$tagResults[] = $article;
}
}
return $tagResults;
}
Here is what I am using to test the code.
$test = article_tag_search("port");
echo '<pre>';
print_r($test);
echo '</pre>';
It results in the following output.
Array
(
[0] => 0
[1] => 1
[2] => 2
)
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Dustin
Is your FAQ multi-page? (eg, every question has a (pretty long) answer on a different page) If so, it should be ok to use the solution you're currently using. Although, from a UX point of view, I would appreciate one page with all questions listed one beneath the other, and a search input for filtering the list (with Javascript).
If your FAQ contents aren't too much, you can load them with a single AJAX call, else you can 'cap' the requests and load them gradually (eg. Facebook, if I remember correctly, sets a max. of 25 posts to retrieve from a public page at once).
As for question 2, I think a better (more portable) solution would be:
function get_items_by($prop, $value) {
global $articles;
$result = array();
for ($i = 0; $i < count($articles); $i++) {
// below split in else if just for readability
if (is_array($articles[$i][$prop]) && in_array($value, $articles[$i][$prop]))
array_push($result, $i);
else if (is_string($articles[$i][$prop]) && strpos($articles[$i][$prop], $value) > -1)
array_push($result, $i);
}
return $result;
}
The function above will return the indexes of any array items whose $prop is either (1) an array and has a value in it matching $value, or (2) a string in which the $value is found. Use like so:
get_items_by('tag', 'port'); // returns [0]
get_items_by('body', 'Body of'); // returns [1,2]
Of course be aware that the function needs some customization if, eg, a search for parts of a tag should return results as well.
Instead of returning the indexes you could just as well return the items (array_push($result, $articles[$i])), and update your list with AJAX when the user hits the search button/ enter. An example with jQuery:
(JS)
$('#search-button').on('click', function() {
var searchFor = $('#search-field').val();
$.ajax({
url: "your/PHPFile.php",
data: {search: searchFor}
}).done(function(data) {
var data = $.parseJSON(data);
$.each(data, function(item) {
// here you have access to each article's title, body, etc.. for output
});
});
});
(PHP handler file)
if (isset($_REQUEST) && isset($_REQUEST['search'])) {
echo json_encode(get_items_by('tag', $_REQUEST['search']));
die();
}