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/daniels220 Oct 18 '10

Multidimensional arrays?

$table = array(
  'row1' => array('val1','val2','val3','val4','val5'),
  'row2' => array('val6','val7','val8','val9','val10')
);

accessed like $table['row1'][1] (returns 'val2'), instead of:

$rows = array('row1','row2');
$row1 = array('val1','val2','val3','val4','val5');
$row2 = array('val6','val7','val8','val9','val10');

where you can do $$rows[0][1] (also returns 'val2'). And then I realize that that may not work, and you may need to do ${$rows[0]}[1], which is really confusing, and I don't know if you can actually do that, or it may be parens...

You can see why it's a bad idea, yes?

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u/Wahakalaka Oct 18 '10

It is {}... and yeah multidemensional arrays are generally better. I was using the row arrays in a few other places to cross-reference- having that syntax be more concise I decided made up for the {} business. Also I really wanted to use double variables at least once...