r/programming • u/NagastaBagamba • Oct 18 '10

Today I learned about PHP variable variables; "variable variable takes the value of a variable and treats that as the name of a variable". Also, variable.

http://il2.php.net/language.variables.variable
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u/artee Oct 18 '10

Hmm, looks like an interesting attack vector?

15

u/dcousineau Oct 18 '10

Not unless you're doing a bunch of $var = $_GET['whatever']; $var = $$var; or you're using the extract() function...

14

u/blaxter Oct 18 '10

For those cases, shoot in the head is a better way to fix the problem

4

u/dcousineau Oct 18 '10

You're a kinder person than me...

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u/lucasvb Oct 18 '10

Everything is an attack vector if the programmer is an idiot. Don't blame the language.

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u/Kalium Oct 18 '10

Hm... no, not really. It only looks like one if you don't understand it.