Creating a number of variables dynamically based on a counter - PHP

Question

I have an counter, that gives me the number of times I found a phrase in a document. And Now I need to create a variable for each, example:

//Counter
$fstNameCtr = 0;
do {    
    $fstNameCtr = $fstNameCtr + 1;
} while ($firstNameRange->Execute($objFstName));
echo '$fstNameCtr';

The result came back with 2 instances of the phrase and I'm looking for, now I would like to create a variable for each dynamically based on the number in the counter as following like as:

$instance1 
$instance2

or

$instanceOne
$instanceTwo

Any help would be appreciated, thank you.

Alec Teal · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-03 09:01:32Z

1

This would usually be a list, use:

$x=array();

Then:

$x[]=$newThing; //"append"

You can print it using print_r, and as it is a "list"

$i = 0;
while($i != count($x)) {
    echo($i.": ".$x[$i]);
    $i++;
}

Note I have used this instead of a for loop DELIBERATELY. PHP doesn't distinguish between lists and dictionaries, instead you have this horrible dictionary of numeric indices! So if you remove say the 1st thing (so $x[1]), you have a list with entries at 0, 2, 3,.....

I use this to show that I am treating the array as a list, I use for when I want the key-value pairs (or just the values)

BE CAREFUL WHEN POPPING from such a list, because then certain indices wont exist.

answered Mar 3, 2014 at 9:01

Alec Teal

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André Laszlo · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-03 09:12:50Z

0

It sounds like you want to have a range of counters, each representing a "topic" or certain measurement. Here's a simple implementation, using a dictionary, which might be useful for you:

function increment(&$counters, $key) {
    if (array_key_exists($key, $counters)) {
        $counters[$key]++;
    } else {
        $counters[$key] = 1;
    }
}

This can then be used with an array of counters like this:

$counters = array();
$phrase = "foo bar foo";
foreach (explode(" ", $phrase) as $word) {
    increment($counters, $word);
}
print_r($counters);

The above code will output:

Array
(
    [foo] => 2
    [bar] => 1
)

edited Mar 3, 2014 at 9:12

answered Mar 3, 2014 at 9:06

André Laszlo

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