variable + text

i need to take a variable, and add text to the end of it, for calling a variable inside a file.

im calling the variable news from the page.
and i have my layouts for news and other catagories inside a file called layouts.inc

after i querey the database for news, i need to call the layout for it from the file.

i required the file, but i dont know how to echo $newslayout, which is the name of the layout.

This page will handle alot of different sections, so i need it to be a called variable, + layout after it.

Correct me if I'm wrong - if you need to join two strings (variables?) you can do this :

<?php
$output = $string_a . $string_b;
?>

You can also do this :

<?php
$output .= ' in the end';
?>

.. or :

<?php
$output = 'In the beginning '.$string;
?>

Hope it helps?

I don't quite get what you're asking, but it sounds like you need variable variables - i.e. a variable that you can change the name dynamically.

at php.net, you can check out the section on variable variables.

basically, you can do this:

$john1='value'

$x = 1;

$var=${'john'.$x};

echo $var; ## result: 'value'

then you can loop through the values of $x use change the variables you are calling.

now if you need very differentlt named variables, you could use an array:

$arr=array(0=>'news', 1=>'sports', 2=>'oped');

for ($x=0; $x<=2; $x++) {
echo ${arr[$x]}."<BR>";
}

hopefully (if I did that right) you would get this result:

news
sports
oped

hope that helps.

craig

thanks guys, ill try both