TodoList Template

todo.txt

Building a Todo List in PHP
Now that we have a good understanding of arrays, the command line, checking user input, and control structures, it is time to build an application that we'll be revisiting through-out the course.

A Todo List

The Specs

The application should run on command line, should prompt users to add new items, allow them to add text items, and the ability to remove completed items.

After each action, it should display the todo list and the menu.

The Code

Together we've built the basic application with the following code (or very similar):

<?php

// Create array to hold list of todo items
$items = array();

// The loop!
do {
    // Iterate through list items
    foreach ($items as $key => $item) {
        // Display each item and a newline
        echo "[{$key}] {$item}\n";
    }

    // Show the menu options
    echo '(N)ew item, (R)emove item, (Q)uit : ';

    // Get the input from user
    // Use trim() to remove whitespace and newlines
    $input = trim(fgets(STDIN));

    // Check for actionable input
    if ($input == 'N') {
        // Ask for entry
        echo 'Enter item: ';
        // Add entry to list array
        $items[] = trim(fgets(STDIN));
    } elseif ($input == 'R') {
        // Remove which item?
        echo 'Enter item number to remove: ';
        // Get array key
        $key = trim(fgets(STDIN));
        // Remove from array
        unset($items[$key]);
    }
// Exit when input is (Q)uit
} while ($input != 'Q');

// Say Goodbye!
echo "Goodbye!\n";

// Exit with 0 errors
exit(0);
Most of this code should be very familiar by now, but we have introduced a few new items.

trim() removed whitespace and special characters from strings. See the PHP man page for trim().

We used a do/while instead of another control structure. This allowed us to enter our loop, and pause at the user input area until the user decides to (Q)uit.

We used unset() to remove array elements. See the PHP man page for unset().

Exercises

Create a new directory in your vagrant-lamp directory named todo_list with a file named todo.php containing the code above. Use git init to initialize a new local repository in that directory and commit your code. Create a new remote repository on GitHub called CLI_Todo_List and add the remote to your local repository so you can push your code.

After each exercise item, commit and push changes to your GitHub repository.

Update the code to allow upper and lowercase inputs from user for all menu items. Test adding, removing, and quitting.

Update the program to start numbering the list with 1 instead of 0. Make sure remove still works as expected.