How to use foreach to loop through a file with variable variable?

Question

The following PHP code using foreach does not seem to work. I believe it has to do with "<a href='/$value/access'>".

I've shared the entire codebase.

Does anyone know what is wrong with my statement?

// include/functions.php

<?php

    // Defining the basic cURL function
    function curl($url) {
        // Assigning cURL options to an array
        $options = Array(
            CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => TRUE,  // Setting cURL's option to return the webpage data
            CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => TRUE,  // Setting cURL to follow 'location' HTTP headers
            CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER => TRUE, // Automatically set the referer where following 'location' HTTP headers
            CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT => 120,   // Setting the amount of time (in seconds) before the request times out
            CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 120,  // Setting the maximum amount of time for cURL to execute queries
            CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS => 10, // Setting the maximum number of redirections to follow
            CURLOPT_USERAGENT => "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1a2pre) Gecko/2008073000 Shredder/3.0a2pre ThunderBrowse/3.2.1.8",  // Setting the useragent
            CURLOPT_URL => $url, // Setting cURL's URL option with the $url variable passed into the function
        );

        $ch = curl_init();  // Initialising cURL 
        curl_setopt_array($ch, $options);   // Setting cURL's options using the previously assigned array data in $options
        $data = curl_exec($ch); // Executing the cURL request and assigning the returned data to the $data variable
        curl_close($ch);    // Closing cURL 
        return $data;   // Returning the data from the function 
    }

    // Defining the basic scraping function
    function scrape_between($data, $start, $end){
        $data = stristr($data, $start); // Stripping all data from before $start
        $data = substr($data, strlen($start));  // Stripping $start
        $stop = stripos($data, $end);   // Getting the position of the $end of the data to scrape
        $data = substr($data, 0, $stop);    // Stripping all data from after and including the $end of the data to scrape
        return $data;   // Returning the scraped data from the function
    }
?>

// code.php

<?php

//include functions
include_once("include/functions.php");

// Set URL
$url = "https://www.instituteforsupplymanagement.org/ismreport/mfgrob.cfm";
$source = curl($url);

// Collect dataset

$arr = array("PMI","New Orders");
    foreach ($arr as $value) {

       $data = scrape_between($source,"<strong>$$value","</tr>");

       print_r($data);

}


?>

What does "no working" mean? Maybe you wanted to call the function print_r() without the dollar sign? — Rizier123
– Rizier123, Commented Jun 12, 2016 at 0:46
If i use a fixed value for $value, it will output the right information. However, when i try using a variable within a variable, there is zero output. — user6332864
– user6332864, Commented Jun 12, 2016 at 0:47
There is no variable variable usage here. You need at least two dollar signs $$value but your loop uses a reference &$value — Jeff Puckett
– Jeff Puckett, Commented Jun 12, 2016 at 1:00
@user6332864 Show us your real and full code and what you are actually (trying) to do. — Rizier123
– Rizier123, Commented Jun 12, 2016 at 1:05
If you just want to pass the values then just use one dollar sign. Two dollar signs is something different. — Rizier123
– Rizier123, Commented Jun 12, 2016 at 1:14

jclyons52 · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-12 01:36:56Z

0

within the string the second $ is being treated as a string, so you end up with strings like '$PMI'. why not just assign your variable variable to a temp variable:

$start = $$value;
$data = scrape_between($source,"<strong>$start","</tr>");

also I don't know how you plan to use "New Orders" as a variable name what with the space and all. maybe you're trying to use "PMI" and "New Orders" in the string, in which case just drop the extra $

answered Jun 12, 2016 at 1:36

jclyons52

3163 silver badges8 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How to use foreach to loop through a file with variable variable?

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related