Taking a hopper as input

Question

Title might not be very explanatory. If someone understands my situation please feel free to suggest an edit since I don't know how clear this is.

Because I have no idea where to start and have no experience in this, I think there won't be any pictures.

Anyway, I want to have a hopper as an input and have paper (labeled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) be thrown in the hopper. Then, the hopper takes the input (paper in this case) and sends it to 5 different hoppers each filled with papers labeled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. And then give a comparator output based on the paper you have thrown. And if it's neither of the labeled inputs given, the input gets thrown into a separate chest.

Again, not sure if I'm clear or not, but any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

The item sorter is a good answer. Note: This will only work with items that can stack. I built a small version that only handles 2 different custom named items but could easily be scaled up to handle the 5 you want to use.

The item sorter I used requires two hoppers per sorter. A comparator measures the contents of the first "filter" hopper that is specifically filled and this output allows the hopper underneath to take in items. This prevents the filter hopper from emptying. This makes that hopper only accept the item of your choosing.

The contents of the filled filter hopper are a stack of 41 of the custom named paper (or whatever you want to filter through that can be stacked). The other 4 slots are filled with another custom named item. In my example, the cobblestone is named "filter". These prevent the hopper from taking in anything in those slots.

Note: You can put a stack in the anvil and named the entire stack, saving experience points.

Sorter:

By using multiple sorters you can then determine which sorter took in an item and output a signal.

What I built is basic. It would require emptying the chest after the mechanism is used. A system could easily be built to send output pulses from each of the sections and not require the chest be emptied each time.

This would require another hopper before the chest. A comparator would output a pulse as the item passes through the hopper.

Example:

Edit: I forgot to mention, the filter hopper can not be pointed into the hopper below it. If you look at this last image you can see, I have pointed the filter hopper into the comparator. This is not required though, any direction but down in this case.

Answer 2

You need to make the following system

1. First take the input from the input hopper and pass it through an item sorter, to check which paper is passed through
2. Then you need to take your input from the item sorter, and since you know which one it is, dump it into an appropriate chest
3. Take a comparator output from the chest, and use it to display whatever output you want to be shown.

An example of what i am saying
The person wants to get into room A, and puts in the key of that room into the input hopper. This gets passed through an item sorter which checks that the key labelled 'A' has been passed through. Then the key is put from the item sorter into a chest. A comparator takes an output from the chest and opens up the door to room A. Then the key is taken and given to the person once he goes into room A.