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up vote 1 down vote favorite

i have the following 3 variables:

        private $a_total;
        private $b_total;
        private $c_total;

now when the fields are filled out with some data for totals, names of those fields are "a", "b", and "c". I want to store it dynamically to the variables above something like:

      $type = $_POST['totaltype']; //either a, b or c
      $to_save = "{$type}_total";
      $this->$to_save['total'] = some number;

if i try to 

 print_r($this->$to_save);

it gives empty array. If i try to:

 print_r($this->$to_save['total']);

it gives correct number.

can anyone help?

Note: i want to use dynamically because these data will be inside a big loop so i don't want to reuse $a_total, $b_total, $c_total since i will have more than a, b and c variables.

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1  
It might be better to restructure the way you're accessing this. Have you considered $this->totals[$type]. There's no reason to dynamically create a variable for this case. –  freshnode Nov 5 '12 at 14:01
    
i need to store it in database as separate serialized array. will that work for the case? –  Giorgi Nov 5 '12 at 14:03
1  
Well yes, if you serialise($this->totals) you'll get an array with an associative structure. If you're using one of the below answers, go for it - just didn't immediately see why you'd need to incur the overhead of dynamically creating these variables. –  freshnode Nov 5 '12 at 14:07
    
this would work also but for this project i need it dynamic, thanks though –  Giorgi Nov 5 '12 at 14:09
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2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

You can wrap the variable name in curly-brackets inside the class:

$this->{$type . "_total"} = 5;

The same works when accessing it like an array:

$this->{$type . "_total"}['total'] = 5;

You can also save the full-name of the variable in a string, such as your $to_save and access it the same way:

$to_string = $type . '_total';
$this->{$to_string}['total'] = 5;
print_r($this->{$to_string});
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this is what i was looking for, curly-brackets did the trick thank you –  Giorgi Nov 5 '12 at 14:05
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up vote 0 down vote

Change $a_total to $total['a'], $b_total to $total['b'], and $c_total to $total['c'],

Then you can access the values dynamically.

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