I need help with a search table!

[MrsKitty]

I would like to make (by myself, no "auto generate" sites, please- I want to learn) a table where I can search within it. For instance, If I have a table that has open fields, I can put "000|245|255" and it would come up with the RGB code for it, and also the closest codes within, say, 25 points.

Like this:

"Search" 000|245|255

"Found" 10pts form Pure Cyan (000|255|255)

Where could I find the resources to research and find coding for something like that?

Thank You!

~~Kitty~~

[jthayne]

I understand wanting to do this on your own. How else do you learn, right? So are you wanting to learn Javascript, or a server-side scripting language such as PHP or ASP?

How are you determining the values that go in the table in the first place?

The simplest way to do it (whatever language you use) is to store the values you are putting in the table in an array and search through the array as needed.

[MrsKitty]

Well, I keep seeing PHP, so I think that's it. Um, as far as the table, I made one in Microsoft Works Datasheet and it's good and all to manually look through my lists but it really bites when I have to find a "similar" value, such as in my first post. I am attempting to make an actual html table with all of the values in it, I would like to know if I can use a search engine of sorts to make it easier...

Thank You jthane!

[richardwilliams]

So, you want to find out, given Red, Green, Blue values, what's the name of a color that's closest to these values.

Very good idea. I recommend learing some scripting language.

Here is a suggestion about how to do this.

Store the file that you have created of colors in .CSV format, at, say, C:/colors.csv. I will assume the file has the following format.

Red,255,0,0
Green,0,255,0
Blue,0,0,255
Pure Cyan,000,255,255
...

The following script will do the job. It is written in biterscripting. The idea is to take each color from the above list, calculate the "distance" between the RGB values of that color and the input color. Whichever color is the closest, its name will be printed.

# SCRIPT ClosestColor
# Input arguments
var int inR, inG, inB

set $wsep = ","

var int shortest, distance
var str output

# Go thru the color list, find the color that is the closest.
# We will set $shortest to the highest value possible
set $shortest = 256+256+256
var str colors ; cat "C:/colors.csv" > $colors
while ($colors <> "")
do
    var str color ; lex -e "1" $colors > $color
    var str name ; var int R, G, B
    set $name = { wex -e -p "1" $color }
    set $R = makeint(str({wex -e -p "2" $color}))
    set $G = makeint(str({wex -e -p "3" $color}))
    set $B = makeint(str({wex -e -p "4" $color}))

    var int distanceR, distanceG, distanceB
    set $distanceR = ($R-$inR)
    if ($distanceR < 0)
        set $distanceR = -1 * $distanceR
    endif

    set $distanceG = ($G-$inG)
    if ($distanceG < 0)
        set $distanceG = -1 * $distanceG
    endif

    set $distanceB = ($B-$inB)
    if ($distanceB < 0)
        set $distanceB = -1 * $distanceB
    endif

    set $distance = $distanceR+$distanceG+$distanceB
    if ($distance < $shortest)
    do
        set $shortest = $distance
        set $output = $name
    done
    endif
    
done

# The closest color name is in $output.
echo $output

Save this script in a file C:/Scripts/ClosestColor.txt and call it from biterscripting as follows.

script ClosestColor.txt R(0) G(255) B(0)

The above should produce "Green".

I have tested this script.

You can even run this script as part of your web site. If you don't have biterscripting, download free at

http://www.biterscripting.com/install.html




Richard