Question

I’ve got this problem when trying to construct a variable name
(which should output a corresponding array element.)

I start with setting the variables for testing purposes, normally the piece variable would hold the first element of an array $piece.

$wordnumber = 0;
$piece[0] = "forever";

I later echo them right before my problem to see if they’re still ok.

echo "$piece[0]";
echo "$wordnumber";

The output is ok.

forever0

But then comes the problem, as I’m trying to make a function that automatically handles every single array element, so I want it to construct the next corresponding variable every time. However somehow it has no value after construction.

$name = ${'piece[' . $wordnumber . ']'};
echo "$name";

outputs nothing…

I’ve tried a lot of different formatting, I really don’t know why I’m failing so hard here.
The code isn’t part of any function right now btw.

Update:
$name = $piece[$wordnumber] solves the problem
I’m curious though why my previous formatting didn’t work as expected.

Update: Question solved by André, the problem was that $piece[0] wasn’t actually part of an array. So $piece was the actual variable. After storing an actual array $piece = array(“Redish”, “Yellow”, “Green”); at start and using global $piece; in my function everything started working like a charm.

Answer 1

I haven’t tested the code, but I think your first approach didn’t work because your variable’s name is “piece”, not “piece[0]”. In other words, ${'piece'}[0] should work, but ${'piece[0]'} is wrong. Try add this in the very beginning of your script and PHP should display you some complaints:

error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set("display_errors", 1);