[Resolved] variable name length

[gizzmo]

Hello everyone

does anyone knows the max character length a variable name can be.

Thanks, Gizzmo

[TheDefender]

That's an interesting question... I would never have even thought to ask something like that, because I like to keep my variables manageable, and have never needed a variable named:

$thelongvariablenamethatyouwouldneverevenbeabletorememberanyhowsowhatisthepoint

I imagine that you could create your variable name and try to echo it's value back out, and keep adding a few characters to the name of it until it errored... ala "The Price is Right/High Low game".

[gizzmo]

you are absolutely right in every way. How ever its good to know the limitation just in case.

Thanks for replying.

[TheDefender]

Yeah, I would imagine that would be nice to know... Like I said, I have never even thought about it, since I keep my variable names pretty succint and manageable... Incidentally, I gave a cursory glance in the PHP Manual (downloaded CHM version) and found nothing specifically referencing any limit to variable names (other then the whole "You can't used Reserved words" blurb.)

[TheDefender]

Actually, I looked in the online manual, and found this blurb (Note the bold faced section):

"Variable names follow the same rules as other labels in PHP. A valid variable name starts with a letter or underscore, followed by any number of letters, numbers, or underscores. As a regular expression, it would be expressed thus: '[a-zA-Z\x7f-\xff][a-zA-Z0-9\x7f-\xff]*'"

[gizzmo]

see, now we both know lol

Thanks a million.

[TheDefender]

Yep... The only problem is that I am going to have to write one of these long gem variables into one of my scripts now, just because I can... LOL Have a good one, and be sure to mark this thread resolved.