Adding variable to constant, php

Question

I have defined a few constants like this:

define("TITLE_2","Yahoo");
define("TITLE_3","Google");

Next, I want to get the constant through a function.

public function title($id) {
    return TITLE_.$id;
}

Idea, I can call $this->title(2) to get Yahoo and $this->title(3) to get Google. However, it is not working. I am getting TITLE_2 or TITLE_3 in place of Yahoo or Google.

Help? Thanks.

Why would you want to do that anyway? TITLE_1 is as meaningless as TITLE_2. Passing 1 or 2 to getTitle() is not helping anyone to understand what these Magic Numbers stand for. Either you want to use Constants, then access them directly with TITLE_YAHOO or TITLE_GOOGLE or use Contant Methods instead of the Constants, e.g. getTitleForYahoo() and getTitleForGoogle() where those return the strings. But not that mishmash. — Gordon
– Gordon, Commented Mar 31, 2011 at 9:17

salathe · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-31 09:14:49Z

7

Use the constant function

public function title($id) {
    return constant("TITLE_$id");
}

edited Mar 31, 2011 at 9:14

salathe

52.1k12 gold badges108 silver badges134 bronze badges

answered Mar 31, 2011 at 8:57

Rob Agar

12.5k5 gold badges52 silver badges64 bronze badges

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

2 Comments

Gaurav Over a year ago

TITLE_.$id should be quoted. otherwise PHP notice will be there.

edorian Over a year ago

Notice: Use of undefined constant TITLE_ - assumed 'TITLE_' in Command line code on line 1 --- You should use "TITLE_$id"

edorian · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-31 09:08:08Z

4

What php is trying to do here is "get the define TITLE_ and then append the value stored in $id".

You need to use the constant() function for this to work like you want:

public function title($id) {

    return constant("TITLE_$id");
}

Using the way you decribed also produces and

Notice: Use of undefined constant TITLE_ - assumed 'TITLE_'

Make sure you have error reporting turned on and at least enabled E_NOTICE warnings as they will help you a lot when debugging things like this.

edited Mar 31, 2011 at 9:08

answered Mar 31, 2011 at 8:58

edorian

39k15 gold badges129 silver badges145 bronze badges

Comments

2 revs · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-31 09:06:09Z

1

you need to return constant(TITLE_.$id)

edited

you need to `return constant("TITLE_.$id")`

Thanks Gaurav

edited Mar 31, 2011 at 9:06

community wiki

2 revs
Sai Krishna

1 Comment

Gaurav Over a year ago

TITLE_.$id should be quoted. otherwise PHP notice will be there.

Softy · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-31 09:02:31Z

0

Maybe you could use the get_defined_constants() to get the list of the constants and then pick the one you want...

answered Mar 31, 2011 at 9:02

Softy

5427 silver badges18 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Adding variable to constant, php

4 Answers 4

2 Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

4 Answers 4

2 Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related