This project is a demonstration of how to store a list of usernames in a cloud variable. Cloud variables can only store numbers, so the algorithm that makes this possible does the following: Each viable username character (a..z, A..Z, 0..9, -, and _) is assigned a 2-digit number. This provides a way to represent any username as a series of numbers, each two numbers representing a character. Quick example: a = 10, b = 11, c = 12, d = 13, e = 14 The username "cade" would be represented as 12101314 The current viewer's username is then transposed to numbers The cloud variable "user list" is then checked for the presence of the current username's number format. This is a little complicated, but here's a brief explanation: The "user list" cloud variable takes the format of <numbername1>99<numbername2>99<numbername3>99, where <numbername> represents the series of numbers a username is mapped to, and 99 is a record separator. 99 does not map to a valid character, so it is used to separate one number name from the next. To check the user list, we loop over the length of user list, building each "record" of numbers up to the next 99, or the end of the user list. Each time we build a "record", we check the current user's number name against that record. If they match, the user has already been stored in the user list cloud variable and we can stop. If they do not match, the loop continues searching through user list until a match is found or the end of user list is reached. If the end of the user list is reached and a match is never found, 99 is added on the end of user list, followed by the current user's number name. *It's important to know that the length of time it takes to parse the user list increases with each user that visits this project **Although this was an interesting challenge, the maximum length of a cloud variable is 256 digits, meaning the number of usernames that can be stored is severely limited. One could increase this number by creating 10 cloud variable user lists, and repeating through each one to lookup and store "number names", but this is still a maximum length of 2560 digits. Given my username, "popbumpers" which has a number name length of 22 (2 for each character and 2 for the "99" separator), my username could only be stored 11 times in one cloud variable (256/22, rounded down) or 116 times across 10 cloud variables (2560/22). 116 is quite a few, but nowhere close to the amount of scratchers out there! Credits: - for being the inspiration for solving this problem - - "Learn Learn Scratch Tutorials" on YouTube for inspiring the "number name" method
