Simple PHP problem I'm stuck on

I’ve got it close but can’t figure it out. I have done:

<?php

$i = 1;
$direction = "up";
$v = 5;

$loop = 20;
$l = 1;

while ($l < $loop)
{
    if($direction == "up")
    {
      $l++;
      print $i;
      $i++;
      if ($i == $v){
          $direction = "down";
      }
    } else {
        $l++;
        print $i;
        $i = $i-1;
       if ($i == 1){
          $direction = "up";
      }
    }
}



?>

But it outputs 1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1,2,3,4,5,4 etc

When I need the last numbers to repeat next to each other i.e. 1,2,3,4,5,5,4,3,2,1,1,2,3,4,5

Figured it out, if you’re interested:

$i = 1;
$direction = "up";
$v = 5;

$loop = 20;
$l = 1;

while ($l < $loop){
    
    print $i;
    $l++;

    if($direction == "up"){

        if($i >= 4){
            $i = 4;
            $direction = "down";
        } else {
            $i++;
        }
    
    } else {

        if($i <= 1){
            $i = 1;
            $direction = "up";
        } else {
            $i = $i - 1;
        }
    
    }

}

?>

Or using some Math 😊

$i = 0;
$divvy = 5;
$num = 20;
while($i < $num)
{
    $bit = (($i % $divvy)+1);
    print (((floor($i / $divvy) % 2) == 0) ? $bit  : (($divvy+1)-$bit)).",";
    $i++;
}

Okay you’ve reeled me in now 😉

Just wondering if you can share what you needed this for?

Best wishes,

Mark

P.S. I’ll be totally honest here and say that I’m just being nosy, coupled with a large dose of intrigue 😉

how about:

$up=array(1,2,3,4,5);
$both = array_merge($up, array_reverse($up));
foreach($both as $num)
    echo $num . '
';

LOL I knew there was going to be an easier way to do it.

Application for organising a sport tournament that has a lot of different brackets with a different amount of competitors per division. The competition is run on 4 matted areas (although this can change).

I figured the best way to assign them to mats was to order the divisions from most competitors to least, and then assign them using that loop. So if the brackets were as follows

1) 25 Competitors 2) 23 Competitors 3) 23 Competitors 4) 21 Competitors 5) 19 Competitors 6) 18 Competitors 7) 11 Competitors 8) 7 Competitors

It would loop though and put the largest 4 divisions on mats 1, 2, 3 and 4. If it started again at Mat 1 then it was going to take longer to finish as it was getting larger divisions each time, so it reverses and gives puts match 5 onto mat 4, match 6 onto mat 3 etc.