Wordsearch php – grid class

From the post on the projects page, wordsearch, here is a basic design of a grid class that can be used to link together with the other aspects of a wordsearch game. This will be able to create a basic grid and populate it with characters.

The reason why I created the createGridRow function was because this class could be inherited and thus alter any aspects of the class to suit the future needs.

The

$this->

within the code references the local variables of the class and not any other variables e.g. local to that function.

The

chr(rand(0,25) + 97);

means create a chr (character) from a random generated value within a range of 0 to 25 (26 letters in the English alphabet) and then add the value 97 to it, because the integer value of 97 – 125 are the ascii codes for a-z characters.

<?php
class Grid {
 
  /* private section of the class grid */
 
  // store the size and the grid
    private $_size = 0;
    private $_grid;
 
 
  /* the public section of the class grid */
 
    // construct the grid with a given size
    public function __construct($size=0) 
    { 
      // set the private variables
      $this->_size = $size; 
      $this->_grid = array();
      for ($i =1; $i <= $this->_size; $i++)
      {
	// create each row of the grid with the class function createGridRow
	$this->_grid[$i] = $this->createGridRow();
      }
    }
 
    // delete the grid 
    public function __destruct()
    {
      // clear up the grid, each line and then the whole object.
      for ($i = 1; $i <= $this->_size; $i++)
      {
	unset($this->_grid[$i]);
      }
      unset($this->_grid);
    }
 
    /* createGridRow, this can be inherited and thus altered to create any type of character in the grid */
    public function createGridRow()
    {
	$_grid_insert = array();
	for ($j = 1; $j <= $this->_size; $j++)
	{
	  $_grid_insert[$j] = chr(rand(0,25) + 97);
	}
	return $_grid_insert;
    }
 
    /* basic print out of a grid */
    public function printOut()
    {
      echo "The grid<br/>";
      for ($i = 1; $i <= $this->_size; $i++)
      {
	echo "$i .. ";
	for ($j = 1; $j <= $this->_size; $j++)
	{
	    echo " $j = ".$this->_grid[$i][$j];
	}
	echo "<br/>";
      }
    }
 
    /* return the size of the grid */
    public function returnSize()
    {
      return $this->_size;
    }
 
    /* insert a character into the grid at position X, Y and the character */
    public function insertCharIntoGrid($pX, $pY, $char)
    {
	$this->_grid[$pY][$pX] = $char;
    }
 
    /* return the grid reference */
    public function returnGrid()
    {
      return $this->_grid;
    }
}
$wordsearch_grid = new Grid(6);
$wordsearch_grid->printOut();
?>

The output of the code as above is

The grid
1 .. 1 = l 2 = l 3 = z 4 = m 5 = h 6 = m
2 .. 1 = u 2 = r 3 = z 4 = s 5 = k 6 = y
3 .. 1 = f 2 = k 3 = j 4 = n 5 = k 6 = p
4 .. 1 = h 2 = p 3 = x 4 = o 5 = c 6 = q
5 .. 1 = s 2 = s 3 = x 4 = r 5 = u 6 = v
6 .. 1 = r 2 = f 3 = g 4 = q 5 = s 6 = o

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