dynamic variables???

[Anon]

this is hard to explain...

but basically i've got a group of variable passed from a form all numbered like..

area_0
area_1
area_2
area_3
...

and there's another variable to say how many there are area_number.

on the next page i want to read these variables dynamically through a loop. it'll loop for the number of area's there are. and then act on each one.

i don't want to define the variables in the second page as it's a complicated search script and i don't want people messing with it!!!

this way, if people want to add an area to be searched, they just do it and update how many areas are present. then my scripts will still work with-out updating them.

any ideas would be much appreciated...

[togno]

you can access the content of a variable with an other variable containing the name of the first one:

$foo = "bar"
$bar = "Hello"
print( $$foo . " world" );

here, $$foo is like $bar.

so you can loop easyly :
for($i=1, $i<=10, $i++) {
$var_name = "my_var_" . $i;
$$var_name = my_func($i);
}

see "variable variable" in the php documentation.

[richierich]

Does this carry on ad infinitum??

if you set
$foo = "bar"
$bar = "Hello"
$Hello = 'cough'

would $$$foo=='cough'?

[Anon]

You might also want to try (in your instance):

for ($i = 0; $i < $area_number; $i++) {
$current_value = ${"area_$i"};
// Do processing etc
}

Hope that helps.

Chris King

[togno]

yes it does (do the test)

[Anon]

oooh, thankyou very much - that just helped me out a LOT :o)