[RESOLVED] another new stupid question.

djwideboy

Hi i know this is stupid question that may have been asked a million times.

can i put a set of request arrays inside a function and call that function at any other time in order to use it?

For example

function userdata()
{
$name = $REQUEST['name'];
$surname = $REQUEST['surname'];
$email = $_REQUEST['email'];
}

would this work ok?
Its only when i am passing the data from a form i just want to call it to process it from a number of pages.

bpat1434

$REQUEST, $POST, $GET, $SESSION, $COOKIE, $FILES are all super-global arrays. This means that they're all available anywhere since they're global.

You can read up on it here.

djwideboy

thanks for the reply i just wanted to know if it was possible to store the request variables in a function so i could call it anytime i wanted as in the previous question.

Sorry for the confusion

bpat1434

Functions last as long as they're called. So if you do:

userdata();
userdata();

both times, the variables will be "reset" to whatever is in the $_REQUEST array. To keep them between calls, you'd have to use a class...

djwideboy

thankk you very much

Horizon88

Don't forget to mark this resolved 😉

djwideboy

how do i do that

bradgrafelman

There's a link under "Thread Tools" towards the top of this page (just above the first post).

djwideboy

ok thanks sorry about that however

i did this

function userdata()
{
$name = $REQUEST['name'];
$surname = $REQUEST['surname'];
$email = $_REQUEST['email'];
}

and stored it in a file then i recalled the file in a include statement.

However it did not work when i tried to recall it.

userdata()

can i not pass functions like this?

the idea was that i could use the same function down the form or am i completely missing the points?

bpat1434

If you mean you're calling userdata() then trying to use the variables $name, $surname, $email, then no, you can't do that. The function has a scope that is separate from the scope of the script you're running. So the file that does the including of your function userdata, that has a scope that is all encompassing of that script in if() statements, switches, and other typical procedural style code. Functions, since they're their own block of procedural code, have their own scope outside of what the currently running script's is.

So the $name variable in your function is a separate variable that the $name in the root of the script. For example:

<?php

function userdata()
{
    $name = 'Brett';
}

$name = 'Joe';

userdata();

echo $name; // prints "Joe"
?>

If you were to add the "global" keyword to the function, and declare that the $name variable be global, then you would be working with the variables that are in the entire script:

<?php

function userdata()
{
    global $name;

$name = 'Brett';
}

$name = 'Joe';
userdata();

echo $name; // prints 'Brett'
?>

You can list as many variables as you need on the "global" line, just separate them by variables:

global $name, $surname, $email;

Hope that helps.

bradgrafelman

Or, without the globalization of variables:

function userData() {
    $return = array();

$return['name'] = 'Brad';
$return['age'] = 18;
return $return;
}

$data = userData();

echo 'Hello there, ' . $data['name']; // Hello there, Brad

djwideboy

thank you very much guys thats been a real help