[Pawn] Find the number into a text

[denNorske]

The best approach is to use a plugin for adding regex functionality to your script. Regex is good at pattern matching, and it is a breeze to find numbers with it.

I have taken in consideration that you might not use regex or that you are not familiar with it, considering you asked this question.

The approach to find a number in a string can be a bit convoluted.

The approach I would do is as follows:

1. Assign the string to a variable, and loop through it.
2. Every time you find a space, check the part of the string that has been looped over (the current word)
3. Check if it is a number. If it is, voila!

Here is an example;

PHP Code:

stock bool:IsNumber(const string[])
{
    for(new i = 0; string[i] != '\0'; i++)
    {
        if(i == 0 && string[i] == '-' && string[i + 1] != '\0') // Allow minus sign at the start
            continue;

        if(string[i] < '0' || string[i] > '9')
            return false;
    }
    return true;
}

// Function to extract the first number (positive or negative) from a string
stock ExtractFirstNumber(const input[], &number)
{
    new word[MAX_STRING_LENGTH];
    new idx = 0, wordIdx = 0;

    while(input[idx] != '\0')
    {
        // Check for space or end of string
        if(input[idx] == ' ' || input[idx + 1] == '\0')
        {
            if(input[idx + 1] == '\0')
            {
                word[wordIdx] = input[idx];
                wordIdx++;
            }

            word[wordIdx] = '\0';

            if(IsNumber(word))
            {
                number = strval(word); // Convert to number
                return true; // Number found
            }

            wordIdx = 0; // Reset for the next word
        }
        else
        {
            word[wordIdx] = input[idx]; // Build the current word
            wordIdx++;
        }

        idx++;
    }

    return false; // No number found
}

main()
{
    new input[50] = "This is a test string with number -1234 in it";
    new number;

    if(ExtractFirstNumber(input, number))
    {
        printf("First number found: %d", number);
    }
    else
    {
        printf("No number found in the string");
    }
}