Using a { and } in a function

I have seen curled brackets ( {,} ) used in some functions, especially the imap and fsockopen functions.

I just wondered what purpose these served.

Can anyone help me? :D

the curly brackets are used to open and close all functions.
like so:

function abc(){
...
whatever happens in the function....
...
}

they're also used to start and end if blocks and loops.
eg.
for(whatever){
the loop
}

and
if(condition){
...whatever...
}
see?

or did you mean something else? :confused:

I know that ( sorry, guess I didnt make myself clear )

This may not be where it should be, but it looks like it:

imap_open('{my.imap.host}','user','pass');


I dont use the imap functions, and this is probably incorrect, but have seen it used in a similar way and with mysql functions.

the curly braces are used ..(from php4.1 ? perhaps 4.2 onwards) to tell PHP that the enclosed value should be treated as a variable and not as a literal...

i.e.


<?
mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $table WHERE id=$_POST['id']")or die(mysql_error());

//would die ... but this .. would work

mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $table WHERE id={$_POST['id']}")or die(mysql_error());
?>


in a similar fashion ..turn up error reporting...


<?
error_reporting(E_ALL);

$_GET['world']='world';
echo "hello $_GET['world']";

/*PHP looks for the $_GET variable 'world' (quotes and all)
which does not exist , braces force the comparison..*/

echo "hello {$_GET['world']}";
?>


thats a bad example but shows the point, note in the above ..

echo "hello $_GET[world]";

would print 'hello world' , but also throw a warning.

I think I get it, would that mean that

mysql_connect('{$host}','user','pass');


would find a variable named $host even though it is in single quotes, or do you need to use double quotes?

no, anything in single quotes is taken as literal so above php would look for a host called {$host}

mysql_connect("$host",etc

is fine but pointless as
mysql_conect($host,etc

would do the job as-is , but
mysql_conect("$config['host']",etc

will fail as php looks for a literal $config=>'host'
whereas with
mysql_conect("{$config['host']}",etc

PHP now parses the above as if you had written ...
mysql_connect(" ".$config['host']." ",etc i.e. $config=>host

err ok a better example ;) this
echo "localhost config is {$config['host']} and this ...blah";

would be interpreted by PHP internally as if you had written
echo "localhost config is ".$config['host']." and this ...blah";

...I know what I mean I just don't appear to know how to say it ;)

I understood what you meant there firepages.