Assigning value to auto increment variable

[Sloth]

hi all

first post and hopefully someone can help this has been doing my head in for last 24 hours , decide to appeal to the wonderweb to see if I can find someone much smarter than myself willing to point us in the right direction.

Any idea on how to assign value to a auto increment variable inside a loop .lets say for example


$letter="a";
for($i=1;$i<=5;$i++){
$letter = $i;
$letter++;
}

i want output in this way;

$a=1
$b=2
$c=3
$d=4
$e=5

or any alternative to this?

Thanks in advance

[mlseim]

The real question is, "what is your goal, or purpose for doing this?"

Technically it can be done, but programming is based on "best principles",
making a script fast, efficient, and a non-burden for a processor.

What you might actually be thinking about is an array ...

$a[0] ... to .... $a[1000]

That would be 1001 unique values (variables) that are easily manipulated.

Tell us what your goal is, or what you're attempting to do.



.

[Arcticwarrio]

edit.

[Arcticwarrio]

sorry, i got it the wrong way round:

this is better:

PHP Code:

<?php
$letters = array("","a","b","c","d","e");
for($i=1;$i<=5;$i++){
    $$letters[$i] = $i;
}
echo '<br>a = '.$a;
echo '<br>b = '.$b;
echo '<br>c = '.$c;
echo '<br>d = '.$d;
echo '<br>e = '.$e;
?>

[mlseim]

Maybe you're talking about "variable variables"?
http://php.net/manual/en/language.va...s.variable.php

Should they be used?
In my opinion, never.



.

[Fou-Lu]

I agree; I've yet to find a situation where variable variables are a requirement and there is always a way around them. They are more of a headache in keeping track of them.
Use arrays. If you can be clearer on the actual purpose, we can make better examples. Given what you have done here, a simple:

PHP Code:

$aKeys = range("a", "e");
$aValues = range(1, count($aKeys));
$aResult = array_combine($aKeys, $aValues); 


Would generate an associative array of the letters with the numbers.

[Arcticwarrio]

thanks to fou-lu for that as i have learnt about array_flip(); today lol (by googleing range())