Can anyone please help a PHP beginner with a problem.

I'm pulling a load of data from a MySQL database, including a 13 character sort key. I want to produce a link to a URL which is based on the sort key

e.g. Sort_Key = 0006001000100

would refer to document '01000100.pdf' in folder 00/060

So I need to split Sort_Key into three separate strings thus

00 . 060 . 01000100
in order to build the URL.

Hope all that makes sense, and thanks in advance for any advice.

Hi, Gerry ... welcome.

I think unpack will do the trick ... here's an example ...

Code:

$dd = unpack("A2Icecream/A2Cream/A4Custard","00112233"); print ($dd[Icecream]."\n"); print ($dd[Cream]."\n"); print ($dd[Custard]."\n");

That's 2 characters into the element called Icecream, 2 characters into the element called Cream, and 4 into the element called custard.  

The output is

Code:

00 11 2233

Thanks for that Graham. I ended up trawling the manual before I read your reply and I used the substr function instead, which seemed to do the job equally well.

http://uk2.php.net/substr

From memory (the code's at work) my code was something like this (excuse any duff syntax)

Code:

<? $sort_key = "0006001000100" // value extracted from mysql db $start = substr($sort_key, 0, 2); // returns '00' $middle = substr($sort_key, 2, 3); // returns '060' $end = substr($sort_key, 4, 8); // returns '01000100' $url = "$start/$middle/$end.pdf"; //returns 00/060/01000100.pdf print ("<a href='$url'>CLICK HERE</a>");

Thanks again for taking the time to respond. I just had a quick trawl through the forum and there's loads here I can put to use  

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