Question

Possible Duplicate:
What's an actual use of variable variables?

OK, this question may look a little bit point-whoreish, but I'd really like to know: when are variable variables useful? I haved programmed in PHP for several years, but I've never used them. For me it looks rather funny than useful.

What are some real life examples of variable variables?

Update:

I'm really sorry about your votes. The linked 'duplicate' may be really a dupe except one thing: the examples listed there show me why not to use variable variables.

Was it helpful?

Solution

Never. This feature should be banned from the language as well as its other children diseases such as register globals, magic quotes, etc.

OTHER TIPS

I have seen it used in some MVC frameworks to initialize variables in the View object.

foreach ($this->vars as $key => $value)
{
    // some test would be here so there are no conflicts
    $$key = $value;
}

You can then access the the variabels in templates.

I'm not saying this is a good use though. Probably a case of poor design.

It's useful for setting up configuration files dynamically. Check PHP and Variable Variables for a better idea.

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