Variable scope

Anon

I have a varibale $sample in a while loop. How would I access its value outside the while loop. When I try it just prints the $sample.

while (condition) {

$a = .....

$sample = "$a";

}

echo "SAMPLE : $sample";

thanks

Anon

Make sure you use the global command to declare the variable. see the following url for more details:

http://www.php.net/manual/html/language.variables.scope.html

Anon

I tried declaring the variables as global both outside and inside the while loop. I get errors that read as "GLOBAL variable declaration meaningless in main() scope".

I also looked up pages on variable scoping at the URL you provided. The information was'nt enough.

Any more ideas.

I appreciate your help.

Thanks

Yoda

Anon

What are you trying to accomplish by accessing the variable outside the while loop? The syntax of your first statment is correct, since the while loop executes and then you are left with $sample being whatever it was last declared as in the while loop. If your trying to do something with $sample for each time through the loop, you need to put that code in the while loop:
$x = 1;
while($x < 5){
$a = 2*$x;
$sample = "$a";
$x = $x+1;
echo "Sample: $sample"; // each loop
}
echo "Sample: $sample"; // last loop

Anon

Robert,

I am very sorry. I had the while loop working. I can now echo the values after the while loop for $name, $address and $telephone.

There is a new problem now.

I have some HTML tables after the PHP code(outside the embedded PHP). Is this valid. I am plugging the variables in the HTML code. The variables do not seem to be reading their values, instead they appear as the variables themselves (like $...).

eg:

<table>
<tr>
<td>Name: $name</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Address: $address</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Telephone: $telephone</td>
</tr>
</table>

Anon

you cant access php variables unless you "escape" from the html back into php.

you can do this two ways:
<table>
<tr>
<?
echo "<td>Name: $name</td>";
?>
</tr>
</table>

or a shortcut would be:
<table>
<tr>
<td>Name: <?= $name ?></td>
</tr>

(note these both require certain escape attributes being supported eg <? vs <?php)

Anon

Thanks Rob. I have everything working.

Anon

The above reply raises an interesting point about variable scope which has concerned me for some time.

If I have something like

<?php $i = 1; ?>

Value of i = <?php $i; ?>

Can I be sure that $i does not lose its value when I escape from php the first time?

I know that $i does seem to retain its value when I escape from php and then return to php later in the same page but I cannot find any guarantee written in the php manual or elsewhere of retention of variable values after escape from php.

Is this indeed part of the php specification or is it something that generally works but may not be 100% reliable?