PHP 7.0.6 Released

    Variables

    Table of Contents

    User Contributed Notes

    jsb17 at cornell dot edu
    9 years ago
    As an addendum to David's 10-Nov-2005 posting, remember that curly braces literally mean "evaluate what's inside the curly braces" so, you can squeeze the variable variable creation into one line, like this:

    <?php
          ${"title_default_" . $title} = "selected";
    ?>

    and then, for example:

    <?php
      $title_select     = <<<END
        <select name="title">
          <option>Select</option>
          <option     $title_default_Mr  value="Mr">Mr</option>
          <option     $title_default_Ms  value="Ms">Ms</option>
          <option     $title_default_Mrs value="Mrs">Mrs</option>
          <option     $title_default_Dr  value="Dr">Dr</option>
        </select>
    END;
    ?>
    Kubo2
    1 year ago
    Note that if you use runtime variable name recognition in your code, you are able to use any string as a variable name. Consider following code:

    <?php

    $varName     = 'foo with bar';
    ${    'foo with bar'} = 42;

    // will output int(42)
    var_dump($$varName);

    ?>

    This can be useful for example when accessing a property of an object constructed from JSON:

    <?php

    $composerJson     = json_decode(file_get_contents(__DIR__ . '/composer.json'));

    // would output sth. similar to: object(stdClass)#...
    var_dump(
            $composerJson->{'require-dev'}
    );

    ?>
    webmaster at daersys dot net
    12 years ago
    You don't necessarily have to escape the dollar-sign before a variable if you want to output its name.

    You can use single quotes instead of double quotes, too.

    For instance:

    <?php
    $var     = "test";

    echo     "$var"; // Will output the string "test"

    echo "\$var"; // Will output the string "$var"

    echo '$var'; // Will do the exact same thing as the previous line
    ?>

    Why?
    Well, the reason for this is that the PHP Parser will not attempt to parse strings encapsulated in single quotes (as opposed to strings within double quotes) and therefore outputs exactly what it's being fed with :)

    To output the value of a variable within a single-quote-encapsulated string you'll have to use something along the lines of the following code:

    <?php
    $var     = 'test';
    /*
    Using single quotes here seeing as I don't need the parser to actually parse the content of this variable but merely treat it as an ordinary string
    */

    echo '$var = "' . $var . '"';
    /*
    Will output:
    $var = "test"
    */
    ?>

    HTH
    - Daerion
    Chris Hester
    10 years ago
    Variables can also be assigned together.

    <?php
    $a     = $b = $c = 1;
    echo     $a.$b.$c;
    ?>

    This outputs 111.
    justgook at gmail dot com
    5 years ago
    I found interstate solution to work with arrays

    <?php
    $vars    ['product']['price']=11;

    $aa='product';
    $bb='price';

    echo     $vars{$aa}{$bb};

    //prints 11
    ?>
    Anonymous
    7 years ago
    [EDIT by danbrown AT php DOT net: The function provided by this author will give you all defined variables at runtime.  It was originally written by (john DOT t DOT gold AT gmail DOT com), but contained some errors that were corrected in subsequent posts by (ned AT wgtech DOT com) and (taliesin AT gmail DOT com).]

    <?php

    echo '<table border=1><tr> <th>variable</th> <th>value</th> </tr>';
    foreach(     get_defined_vars() as $key => $value)
    {
        if (    is_array ($value) )
        {
            echo     '<tr><td>$'.$key .'</td><td>';
            if (     sizeof($value)>0 )
            {
            echo     '"<table border=1><tr> <th>key</th> <th>value</th> </tr>';
            foreach (    $value as $skey => $svalue)
            {
                echo     '<tr><td>[' . $skey .']</td><td>"'. $svalue .'"</td></tr>';
            }
            echo     '</table>"';
            }
                 else
            {
                echo     'EMPTY';
            }
            echo     '</td></tr>';
        }
        else
        {
                echo     '<tr><td>$' . $key .'</td><td>"'. $value .'"</td></tr>';
        }
    }
    echo     '</table>';
    ?>
    david at removethisbit dot futuresbright dot com
    10 years ago
    When using variable variables this is invalid:

    <?php
    $my_variable_    {$type}_name = true;
    ?>

    to get around this do something like:

    <?php
    $n    ="my_variable_{$type}_name";
    ${    $n} = true;
    ?>

    (or $$n - I tend to use curly brackets out of habit as it helps t reduce bugs ...)
    Carel Solomon
    11 years ago
    You can also construct a variable name by concatenating two different variables, such as:

    <?php

    $arg     = "foo";
    $val = "bar";

    //${$arg$val} = "in valid";     // Invalid
    ${$arg . $val} = "working";

    echo     $foobar;     // "working";
    //echo $arg$val;         // Invalid
    //echo ${$arg$val};     // Invalid
    echo ${$arg . $val};    // "working"

    ?>

    Carel
    Mike at ImmortalSoFar dot com
    10 years ago
    References and "return" can be flakey:

    <?php
    //  This only returns a copy, despite the dereferencing in the function definition
    function &GetLogin ()
    {
        return     $_SESSION['Login'];
    }

    //  This gives a syntax error
    function &GetLogin ()
    {
        return &    $_SESSION['Login'];
    }

    //  This works
    function &GetLogin ()
    {
            $ret = &$_SESSION['Login'];
        return     $ret;
    }
    ?>
    josh at PraxisStudios dot com
    10 years ago
    As with echo, you can define a variable like this:

    <?php

    $text     = <<<END

    <table>
        <tr>
            <td>
                     $outputdata
            </td>
         </tr>
    </table>

    END;

    ?>

    The closing END; must be on a line by itself (no whitespace).

    [EDIT by danbrown AT php DOT net: This note illustrates HEREDOC syntax.  For more information on this and similar features, please read the "Strings" section of the manual here: http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php ]
    dimitrov dot adrian at gmail dot com
    5 years ago
    This is mine type casting lib, that is very useful for me.

    <?php

    function CAST_TO_INT($var, $min = FALSE, $max = FALSE)
    {
            $var = is_int($var) ? $var : (int)(is_scalar($var) ? $var : 0);
        if (    $min !== FALSE && $var < $min)
            return     $min;
        elseif(    $max !== FALSE && $var > $max)
            return     $max;
        return     $var;
           
    }

    function     CAST_TO_FLOAT($var, $min = FALSE, $max = FALSE)
    {
            $var = is_float($var) ? $var : (float)(is_scalar($var) ? $var : 0);
        if (    $min !== FALSE && $var < $min)
            return     $min;
        elseif(    $max !== FALSE && $var > $max)
            return     $max;
        return     $var;
    }

    function     CAST_TO_BOOL($var)
    {
        return (bool)(    is_bool($var) ? $var : is_scalar($var) ? $var : FALSE);
    }

    function     CAST_TO_STRING($var, $length = FALSE)
    {
        if (    $length !== FALSE && is_int($length) && $length > 0)
            return     substr(trim(is_string($var)
                        ?     $var
                            : (is_scalar($var) ? $var : '')), 0, $length);

        return     trim(
                        is_string($var)
                    ?     $var
                        : (is_scalar($var) ? $var : ''));
    }

    function     CAST_TO_ARRAY($var)
    {
        return     is_array($var)
                ?     $var
                    : is_scalar($var) && $var
                        ? array($var)
                    :     is_object($var) ? (array)$var : array();
    }

    function     CAST_TO_OBJECT($var)
    {
        return     is_object($var)
                ?     $var
                    : is_scalar($var) && $var
                        ? (object)$var
                        : is_array($var) ? (object)$var : (object)NULL;
    }

    ?>
    raja shahed at christine nothdurfter dot com
    11 years ago
    <?php
    error_reporting    (E_ALL);

    $name = "Christine_Nothdurfter";
    // not Christine Nothdurfter
    // you are not allowed to leave a space inside a variable name ;)
    $$name = "'s students of Tyrolean language ";

    print     " $name{$$name}<br>";
    print      "$name$Christine_Nothdurfter";
    // same
    ?>
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