Wow, I had totally forgot about this.
So basically, imagine if you wanted to dynamically choose a variable ...
if,
let's say, the name of the variable, was itself a variable.
Like this:
$cat = 0;
$dog = 0;
$snake = 0;
function incrementCountOfPets($pet)
{
$$pet++;
}
Now, if you passed the string "cat" into that function, the cat variable
would be incremented, but if you passed in the string "dog", the dog
variable would be incremented.
If you didn't have this feature, you would be forced to using an if
statement or a switch/case statement block.
It is truly mind boggling how many good design principles languages such
as
php can allow one to break, *smile*.
Take care,
Sina
-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 7:35 AM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: PHP - How Practical Is This?
Hi,
I don't understand how this works, so I don't know how important or
practical it is. This is some text from a PHP book I'm reading.
Variable Variables
On occasion, you may want to use a variable whose content can be treated
dynamically
as a variable in itself. Consider this typical variable assignment:
$recipe = "spaghetti";
Interestingly, you can treat the value spaghetti as a variable by placing
a
second
dollar sign in front of the original variable name and again assigning
another value:
$$recipe = "& meatballs";
This in effect assigns & meatballs to a variable named spaghetti.
Therefore, the following two snippets of code produce the same result:
echo $recipe $spaghetti;
echo $recipe ${$recipe};
The result of both is the string spaghetti & meatballs.
Thanks.
Jim
James D Homme, Usability Engineering, Highmark Inc.,
james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx, 412-544-1810
"The difference between those who get what they wish for and those who
don't is action. Therefore, every action you take is a complete
success,regardless of the results." -- Jerrold Mundis
Highmark internal only: For usability and accessibility:
http://highwire.highmark.com/sites/iwov/hwt093/
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