Problem with variable variables

[jormaboy]

I have a problem with variable variables. Here's an example:

$old = 4;
$new = '$HTTP_POST_VARS["something' . $old . '"]';
echo $new;

This outputs a string "$HTTP_POST_VARS["something4"]" when I want it to refer to the variable $HTTP_POST_VARS["something4"]. Can the string be converted to a variable or something (I already tried parse_str and eval, without success)?

[bubblenut]

The example you gave is not strictly a variable variable, it's a variable associative array element. What you need is simply

$old=4;
//better to use the superglobals arrays
$new=$_POST['something'.$old];
echo $new;

HTH
Bubble

[jormaboy]

Thanks. That did the job. I should have figured that out myself. I must be quite tired... or just dumb 🙂 Thanks again.

[Lars]

...or you could have specified the ACTION value in the <FORM> tag to refer to the script you want, and then just use the name of the form element as a variable instead of $_POST.
Some like this:

<FORM METHOD=GET ACTION="script.php">
<input type="text" name="text1">

and then

$old=4; 
$new = "$text1 ' . $old . ' "]'; //text1, the name of the textfield, was converted into a PHP variable containing the input text), so now we can use it anywhere to refer to the contents of the textfield.