Array not an array?! (but it sooo is) an

[israfel]

On my site, in an include file, I have an array of variables which control colors and styles. It looks something like this

$colors[\'bgcolor\'] = \"#323c58\";
$colors[\'pxfontsize\'] = \"12px\";
$colors[\'fontcolor\'] = \"#c0c0c0\";
$colors[\'fontsize\'] = \"-1\";
$colors[\'fontface\'] = \"tahoma, helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif\";
$colors[\'smallfontcolor\'] = \"#c0c0c0\";
$colors[\'smallfontsize\'] = \"-2\";

and so on, for all the variables I need.
Later on, in a function, I want to iterate through this array replacing the value of the variables with any occurrance of the variables name in the string.
Here is the problematic function:

function getLayoutBit($layoutbitname, $getcomments=1)
{
$the_coder_is_bored = doQueryArray(\"SELECT layouttitle,layoutvalue FROM templates WHERE layoutname=\'$layoutbitname\'\");
extract($the_coder_is_bored);
$colors = $GLOBALS[\'colors\'];
extract($colors);
foreach($colors as $colorname => $colorvalue) {
$the_coder_is_bored = str_replace(\"%$colorname%\", \"$colorvalue\", \"$layoutvalue\");
}
if ($getcomments==1) {
return \"<!-- start $layouttitle -->$the_coder_is_bored<!-- end $layouttitle -->\";
} else {
return $the_coder_is_bored;
}
}

Later on I\'ll fix up this function to take template bits based on certain criterion (the objective being database powered user selectable templates). Sure there are plenty of interesting and robust template systems out there already but I want to understand mine and asking for a hand isn\'t really the same as picking up someone elses software.

When I try and run these I get an error that extract expects an array as it\'s first argument which I believe is. I tried adding the line
GLOBALS $colors;
at the top of the function but it didn\'t help. If anybody has some insight (or code) to offer me I would be undescribably greatful as I have already spent way more time then I should have on this problem. One thing that bears mention is that I used a require call to include the file which has the $colors array in it so I know it is being successfully included.

My other question is about eval because, no matter what I do with it, it generates errors. I could sit on the other end of the room and hum quietly and my eval calls would spontaneously combust... To be specific, I would like to know just what kind of PHP code it expects and what causes expected T_VARIABLEs. Could I put the $colors array example I gave on this page in a database and eval it for it work the same? Is it possible to make it work exactly the same (well, not exactly the same as that would mean withholding variables from my other scripts and being a generally belligerant block of code).

Thank you.

[Anon]

The global array is called $GLOBALS[], not $GLOBALS[]. But then, saying "global $colors;" is precisely equivalent to saying "$colors = &$GLOBALS['colors'];".

As far as eval() is concerned, the argument (a single string) must consist of valid PHP statements - something that could in principle go in a (probably useless) script of its own without throwing up parse errors - right down to the semicolon. Also (probably the trickiest bit is), since the argment is a string, things that need to be escaped as if they were in a string need to be escaped, since they are in a string.

[israfel]

I solved the problem by including the file with the array in it directly into the function but I'd sure like to figure out why it wasn't working the other way...