Using vars to create an array??

[phill2000star]

Hiya,

Is this possible?

I want the user to submit a number and to create a number of arrays equal to that number, each of them including that an icrimental number in the name of the array.

EG.

User submits the number 4 which is asigned to the variable $noOfArrays. This should create the following arrays -

array1[]
array2[]
array3[]
array4[]

I thought about doing a loop to produce each of the arrays, but I'm stuck. for example i thought about using the following code, but dont know any other way of doing it.

for ($i = 0; $i < $noOfArrays ; $i++) {
array.$i = array();}

Does anyone understand me? i was trying to use the . to join the word array and the variable $i to creat the following - array0[] array1[] array2[] and array3[].

I am doing something wrong but for the life of me cant decide how else to do it??....

Any ideas please!?!?

Many thanx!!

[sde]

sure, you couldmake an array of arrays.. i think you are on the right track , just need a little help with the syntax. maybe try this:

PHP Code:

<?
for($i=0;$i<$noOfArrays;$i++){

  // now just make a new array
  $myArrayOfArrays[] = array();

}
?>

$myArrayOfArrays is a container for all your arrays that were created. They are all empty arrays, but they do exist.

hope that helps.

[phill2000star]

hiya.

Thanx for the reply, but what im really after is to join a fixed variable such as the word "array" combined with a second variable which will be a number, and then use that to create an array.

for eaxmple...


array.1[]
array.2[]
array.3[] etc

I cant think of any way to explain it!!...

You know you can join two strings together? well i want to use the resulting string as a name for a new array?...

Does that help?...
thanx for your reply!

Phil

[sde]

hmm .. i thought that is what arrays were for. i've never really dynamically named variables, but there might be a way.

i'm curious as to the reason you need it that way, instead of just making it an array itself.

array[0]
array[1]
array[2]
array[3]

etc.. if you make it an array, it will be much easier to manage with php as well.

[idx]

Yeah, I'm not understanding the reason either, but take a look at variable variables.

-r

[redhead]

I'm guessing the issue here is from, what I can remember, bad coding style learned during the VB/BASIC days, where you would say, "Hey I need to dynamicaly use some variable.. Well lets just create what we want:, ie:

PHP Code:

$my_hey = "this is hey";
$my_yo = "this is yo";
function give_me($decide){
    return ${"my_$decide"};
} 


Which could easily be changed to:

PHP Code:

$myArray = array(
         "hey" => "this is hey",
         "Yo"  => "this is Yo");
function give_me($decide){
    return $myArray[$decide];
} 


For whatever reason I frequently see old BASIC programmers using loops with referencing variables like that, where they just append the current index to teh variable name, instead of just looping through an array..

For readability, and maintainability, I would rather have it in an array where the code is kinda self explaining, instead of some giberish someone would have to rewrite 5 years from now, because it's just poor programming style.