Question

Possible Duplicate:
How to get a variable name as a string in PHP?

Example:

Can something like this be achieved in PHP?

$Age = 43;

output_variable_name_and_value($Age);

    /*
    outputs:
    "The requested variable name is Age and its current value is 43"; 
    */


//If possible, how would the line marked below with ? ? ? ? be?

function output__variable_name_and_value($input)

{

    $var_name = get_name_somehow($input);   // ? ? ? ? 

    echo "The requested variable name is {$var_name} 
          and its current value is {$input}";

}   

Answer 1

This is not possible, easily. You have to use $GLOBALS;

function get_variable_name($var) {
    foreach($GLOBALS as $k => $v) {
        if ($v === $var) {
            return $k;
        }
    }
    return false;
}

The only downfall is, it may return a different variable name if they both have the same value.

Or this,

function varName( $v ) {
    $trace = debug_backtrace();
    $vLine = file( __FILE__ );
    $fLine = $vLine[ $trace[0]['line'] - 1 ];
    preg_match( "#\\$(\w+)#", $fLine, $match );
    print_r( $match );
}

which I found here: How to get a variable name as a string in PHP?