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Answer 1

+6 A:

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

Col. Shrapnel 2010-08-27 07:20:50

I've never met a problem where i found this useful. Arrays are always looks more simple and useful than juggling with variable names without a good reason. Should i think this function is a fail of this language?

fabrik 2010-08-27 07:44:59

Definitively using variable variables is a sign of a poor design. They are only cool for playing :)

alcuadrado 2010-08-27 09:25:58

Answer 2

A:

Its useful for setting up configuration files dynamically. Check these links for better idea.

http://www.untwistedvortex.com/2010/06/06/php-variable-variables/

Paniyar 2010-08-27 07:26:51

There is nothing valuable by the first link and second is down.

Col. Shrapnel 2010-08-27 07:39:03

I'd rather use .ini files or arrays instead. Variable variables looks unnecessarily complicated to use.

fabrik 2010-08-27 07:46:29

ya i agree with you fabrik.

Paniyar 2010-08-27 07:56:32

I would **never even think about** injecting abritary variables from a file into my code... WTF is wrong with an associative array? I consider downvoting, give me a good reason not to.

delnan 2010-08-27 08:18:57

Answer 3

A:

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.

Richard Knop 2010-08-27 09:16:59

http://php.net/extract

Col. Shrapnel 2010-08-27 09:28:31

Extract is only marginally better. At least you can easily stop it from overwriting existing variables. But since you already have an associative array when you can use extract, you should just use that.

delnan 2010-08-27 09:48:50

@delnan: That's my biggest doubt about variable variables: Why create new variables when i can access (array) elements directly?

fabrik 2010-08-27 09:53:03

@fabrik that's exactly what everyone "dislikes" (to put it mildly) about variable variables: Associative arrays literally provide the same functionality (actually, more - keys are not required to form valid identifiers), but without all the dangers.

delnan 2010-08-27 09:59:21

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Variable variables: when useful?

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