Posted by Jochem Maas on 12/30/05 16:27

Jim Moseby wrote:
>>Thanks for the responses guys, but what i'm saying is i would

....

>
> I believe what Jochem is trying to tell you is that when you assign the
> string variable, the variable names are expanded to their values, so the
> names are no longer available.

exactly - nicely put Jim.

>
> Consider this:
>
> $partname='widget';
> $amount=100;
>
> $string="This $partname costs $amount dollars";
>
> /*
> $string now equals "This widget costs 100 dollars", so when you pass it to
> your function, it has no way to know for sure what the variables were, or
> that there even were ANY variables involved in the generation of the string.
>
> The variable NAMES are not passed because PHP expands them to their values
> and sets $string accordingly.
> */
>
> $string='This $partname costs $amount dollars';
>
> $string now equals "This $partname costs $amount dollars". In this case, I
> used single quotes. The values are not expanded and the variable NAMES are
> passed. The VALUE of the variables are not. So you could then have a
> function look for any word that starts with a $ and return an array of
> names.

hopefully thats clear to the OP now - and he can [re]state his goal in
order that we might point him into a more fruitful direction!

>
> That all being said, what in the world are you trying to do with this? I
> bet you $1.78 (the change in my desk drawer) there is a much better way to
> solve whatever problem it is than the way you are trying here.

yeah 'Superman' explain what it is you want to do AND why - then maybe we can
give you some help - what you are currently asking is impossible (well actually
Jay Blanchard hinted at a way to do it but I firmly believe that its conceptually
over your head atm and very probably not a good solution to what you want to acheive -
which is not to say that Jays hint was crap or wrong; more like the problem you
posed originally is moot.)

>
> JM
>
> Because it ruins the flow of the conversation.

evil genius ;-)

>
>>Why is top posting a bad thing?
>
>

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