Question

I am trying to define dynamically variables. I am using a function for this, but I don’t know how to define the new var as global (because it never created before the function).

is that possible ?

Thanks.

---

edit

ok, this is what I’ve built. is it that dangerous ?

function extract_values($row) {
    foreach ($row as $key => $value){
        global $$key;
        $$key = $value;
    }
}

and then I’m trying to make my life easier like that:

$result = mysql_query("SELECT first_name, last_name, address FROM users ORDER BY id ASC");

    while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
        extract_values($row);
#[do some stuff with the variables.]#
}

I am doing it to save time. instead of creating for each column it’s own variable like

$first_name = $row['first_name'];

This function does that for me.
I don’t see why in this case it might be dangerous..
or as usuall, i am missing something..

Answer 1

Try this:

function doSomething() {
  global $x;
  $x = 5;
}

If you prefer to save a couple of bytes, you can use the $_GLOBALS array for this:

$_GLOBALS['x'] = 5;