Question

I was looking at some source code, specifically for Paypal IPN, and I noticed the author sets two variables in this format: $config[‘business’] and $config[‘different_text’]

Is there a special reason other than the obvious organization for declaring my variables this way or is this Paypal settings?

Answer 1

This syntax is used to access elements of an array — see Arrays in the PHP manual.

Here, you are working with an associative array, called $config, that’s contain at least two entries : business and different_text.

Considering the name of the $config variable, you have at least two advantages :

• related variables are grouped together in one variable — easier to have them together
• only one variable ($config) to work with

And, of course :

• You can add any number of configuration options without having to create a new variable : just add a new element to the $config array.

That being said, of course, maybe the paypal API you are using is actually expecting some data passed as an associative array containing those elements — if it is the case, you don’t have much of a choice.