How can I dynamically create variable names based on an array? What I mean is I want to loop through this array with a foreach and create a new variable $elem1, $other, etc. Is this possible?
$myarray = array('elem1', 'other', 'elemother', 'lastelement');
foreach ($myarray as $arr){
//create a new variable called $elem1 (or $other or $elemother, etc.)
//and assign it some default value 1
}
foreach ($myarray as $name) {
$$name = 1;
}
This will create the variables, but they're only visible within the foreach loop. Thanks to Jan Hančič for pointing that out.
foreach does not create a local scope.goreSplatter's method works and you should use that if you really need it, but here's an alternative just for the kicks:
extract(array_flip($myarray));
This will create variables that initially will store an integer value, corresponding to the key in the original array. Because of this you can do something wacky like this:
echo $myarray[$other]; // outputs 'other'
echo $myarray[$lastelement]; // outputs 'lastelement'
Wildly useful.
Something like this should do the trick
$myVars = Array ();
$myarray = array('elem1', 'other', 'elemother', 'lastelement');
foreach ($myarray as $arr){
$myVars[$arr] = 1;
}
Extract ( $myVars );
What we do here is create a new array with the same key names and a value of 1, then we use the extract() function that "converts" array elements into "regular" variables (key becomes the name of the variable, the value becomes the value).
Use array_keys($array)
i.e.
$myVars = Array ();
$myarray = array('elem1', 'other', 'elemother', 'lastelement');
$namesOfKeys = array_keys($myVars );
foreach ($namesOfKeys as $singleKeyName) {
$myarray[$singleKeyName] = 1;
}
