Help building VIN decoding website

[forwardlookguy]

Hello everyone, I've been trying to build a website with a VIN decoder for a few weeks now and I'm getting no where. I have no experience with PHP but have been doing a lot of reading. My question is how do I split a form into different pieces that can be decoded seperately. For instance: VIN is 4H27F2G111111. I want to take 4 and decode it; H decode it; 27 decode; F decode; 2 decode; G decode; 111111 decode. I haven't been able to learn how to do this and I've been searching for quite some time. If anyone knows how I can accomplish this, I'd be extremely grateful!

Thank you,
Arthur Ash III

[kkeith29]

i don't think it would be hard, but i don't know much about how vin numbers are formatted. is it the same format each time, if so it won't be hard.

[forwardlookguy]

Hey Keith, thanks for the response. The format depends on the make of the car but they are standardized for each make or year range. For example, the VIN format I posted above would be correct for all 1972-1980 GM vehicles. If I had code to work with, I could then adopt it to work with the other formats. I'm glad you said it will be easy because so far I've tried a lot to no avail.

Thanks,
Arthur

[Vai]

Are you doing this for experience or for something else? As if you use google, there are some already out there.
Download, look at the code, and play with it from there...
http://webscripts.softpedia.com/script/Snippets/PHP-XML-VIN-Decoder-28375.html

[forwardlookguy]

I've seen that before but I was wanting to make my own. It will focus on old cars. That VIN decoder only does the newer 17-digit VINs which means only cars from 1981-present can be decoded. There's isn't a place out there that has a VIN decoder that will decode ALL old car VIN's and that's what I'm aiming for.

Thanks,
Arthur

[forwardlookguy]

Can anyone help me here? Supposedly it's not hard so someone has to know!

[kkeith29]

pretty much use substr() to get the values you need. then run that string through the database to find the value they stand for. pretty simple.

[forwardlookguy]

I get what you are saying but I've not been using PHP for long and I don't know how to implent this into my code. Is there anyway you could give me an example using the VIN format I listed above? When you say database, do you mean SQL? I wasn't planning on using a database but I could make one if that would be best. Is there a way to write the variables into the PHP code or is it best to use a database?

Thank you,
Arthur Ash III

[kkeith29]

i was thinking of using a database (mysql,ect.) to store the meanings of each piece of the vin number. (for decoding the vin) i don't know the specifics so this may not be needed.

$vin = '4H27F2G111111';
$part1 = substr($vin,0,1);//returns 4
$part2 = substr($vin,1,1);//returns H
$part3 = substr($vin,2,2);//returns 27
//i think you can figure the rest out.

//after you get each piece. run them through a database to find what they stand for.

[Iternal]

Did you figure it out? if so is the decoder for sale?

[dazm39]

I found this thread about a year late. I've been playing with the same problem. Has anyone made any progress since the previous post?