I have a simple array $arr which contains 6 numbers.
$arr=[10,24,33,47,58,65];
I want to assign each number to a variable prefixed $color so $color1, $color2 etc up to $color6
This then gives $color1 a value of 10, $color2 a value of 24 etc
Then I want to print each of them out e.g. echo $color1; echo $color2; etc
This is what I'm trying but it doesn't work, is there a better way?
$i=1;
foreach($arr as $row)
{
$color.$i = implode(",",$row);
$i++;
}
You're looking for something aptly named variable-variables. To achieve this, you'll need to do:
<?php
$i=1;
foreach($arr as $row) {
${"color" . $i} = implode(",",$row);
$i++;
}
?>
And now you can echo $color1;
extract function, if you use an IDE it won't be able to find these variables - but they do remain useful! :) also, if this answer has worked for you, could you press the big tick next to it?Why don't you just make them as keys and access it as echo $new_arr['color1'];,echo $new_arr['color2'];.... so on ?
<?php
$arr=[1,2,3,4,5,6];
$new_arr = array();
foreach($arr as &$val)
{
$new_arr["color$val"] = $val;
}
print_r($new_arr);
OUTPUT :
Array
(
[color1] => 1
[color2] => 2
[color3] => 3
[color4] => 4
[color5] => 5
[color6] => 6
)
The next code will work:
$arr = array(10,24,33,47,58,65);
$i=1;
foreach($arr as $row)
{
$temp = 'color' . $i;
$$temp = $row; // mention the double $ sign. It will create a variable variable
$i++;
}
echo $color1;
As an alternative approach, there's a succinct way to achieve something similar using extract() with the caveat that your variables will be zero-indexed and contain an underscore; e.g: $color_0, $color_1 etc.
$arr = [10, 24, 33, 47, 58, 65];
extract($arr, EXTR_PREFIX_ALL, 'color');
var_dump($color_0, $color_1, $color_2, $color_3, $color_4, $color_5);
Yields:
int 10
int 24
int 33
int 47
int 58
int 65
You can enforce variable naming from one by modifying $arr slightly to enforce an index from one, like so:
$arr = [1 => 10, 24, 33, 47, 58, 65];
This creates variables named $color_1, $color_2 etc.
Hope this helps :)
Edit
I just noticed above, @James' point above is worth noting - a downside of this approach is that you can extract n number of 'invisible' variables into your program's scope. which isn't always a good thing, especially when you have to debug with var_dump(get_defined_vars()). extract can be quite useful though, for instance if you have a simple templating rendering system.
