[makaiguy]

Thanks again, Paul. Your latest hint got me a lot further. Finally I just created a separate display page with my routine in it. This allowed me to insert a bunch of print() functions to check variables and progress and really get this thing debugged. Seems to be working like a champ.

Here's the final code, in case it will be of use to anybody else (please see questions and concerns below):

PHP Code:

// Add or remove user from secondary usergroup
// according to Pwd value in user's profile

  global $vbulletin;

  // #### SET THESE THREE STRINGS TO THE PROPER VALUES FOR YOUR SYSTEM ####
  $org_mg = '12';                        // membergroup # as string
  $org_pwfield = 'field5';               // custom field# in profile as string
  $org_pwphrase = 'org_member_password'; // vbphrase name containing pwd

  // other string variables 
  $org_mglist = (''.$vbulletin->userinfo['membergroupids']); // current membergroups string
  $org_userid = ($vbulletin->userinfo['userid']);         // userid of user

  $org_mg_pos = (strpos($org_mglist, $org_mg));         // find target membergroup position
                                                        // in group list - returns false
                                                        // if not found

  // boolean variables 
  $org_grp    = ($org_mg_pos !== false);                // User is in target group (true/false)
  
  $org_haspwd = ($vbulletin->userinfo[$org_pwfield] == $vbphrase[$org_pwphrase]); // User 
                                                        // has correct password in profile (T/F)

  if ($org_haspwd != $org_grp)      // Need to update membergroups?
  {
     if (!$org_grp)                 // If not currently in target group
                                    // add to group
     {
        
        if ($org_mglist != '')
        {
           $org_comma = ',';
        }      
        $org_newmg = ($org_mglist . $org_comma . $org_mg);
     }
     else                            // else currently in target group
                                     // and must remove  
     {
        // ********* potential problem section *************
        $org_srch = ($org_mg . ',');            // search string to remove = mg#,             
        $org_newmg = str_replace($org_srch,'',$org_mglist);  
        $org_mglist = $org_newmg;           
        
        $org_srch = (',' . $org_mg);            // search string to remove = ,mg#             
        $org_newmg = str_replace($org_srch,'',$org_mglist);  

        if ((strpos($org_newmg, $org_mg)) !== false)
        { 
           $org_newmg = '';                    
        }
        // ******** end potential problem section **********
     }
     $updatefields = $vbulletin->db->query("
            UPDATE user
            SET membergroupids='$org_newmg'                             
            WHERE userid=$org_userid
     ");
     
  } 


Couple of concerns/questions:

Had to frog around with the str_replace() function quite a bit. Couldn't get it to work recursively on itself as

PHP Code:

$a = str_replace($b,$c,$a)); 


Finally had to bring in a temp string to hold results:

PHP Code:

$d = str_replace($b,$c,$a));
$a = $d; 


Second concern is the method used to remove target group from the list. (See portion of code labeled as 'potential problem section'. ) Happens to work okay for me because my target group is 2-digit group 12. So nulling out '12,' and ',12' works.

But if my target were a single digit number, say 3, nulling out '3,' and ',3' via str_replace() could mess up some two-digit group numbers:
'3,12,23,31' would become '12,21'

.. or even I could have problems if, heaven forbid, we ended up with three digit membergroup numbers.

So for MY use for now, this will work, but as a generic routine for others, it's still lacking.

Can anybody suggest a way of dealing with removing the target group that would solve this problem? (Maybe by working with the group numbers as an array?)