[SOLVED] How to force a string variable parsing?

[duskshine]

We know that the following code outputs "1",

	$i=1;
	$str= "$i";
	echo $str;

 

and this code outputs "$i"

	$i=1;
	$str = "$";
	$str .= "i";
	echo $str;

 

now my question is, suppose I have created a string using the second method, how may I force a string variable parsing to get it writes 1 instead of $i?

 

thanks,

 

[MadTechie]

you mean like this ?

$i=1;
$str = "$";
$str .= "i";
eval("echo $str;");

 

EDIT: something i don't recommend!

 

[Wuhtzu]

You may also want to look at variable variables:

 

http://www.devshed.com/c/a/PHP/Using-Variable-Variables-in-PHP/

http://www.phpbuilder.com/manual/en/language.variables.variable.php

[MadTechie]

i thought of variable variables, but thats in only really useful with the variable name not the value..

 

i think a bigger question is why do you want to do this ?

[duskshine]

 

@Wuhtzu: i failed to find a solution using variable variable

 

@MadTechie: i know that eval's dangerous but it seems i have to take what i have.

 

the fact is..well, im taking codes from a freak who did not use template to support multi-language, instead he uses things like

echo  $TEXT["general-info"];

----------------------

en.php:
$TEXT["general-info"] = "Hello world.";

----------------------

fr.php:
$TEXT["general-info"] = "Bonjour le monde.";

 

that works at first...until he left and the boss decided to put $TEXT["general-info"] into a db. now i get the whole damned "template" from database and of course, it writes $TEXT["general-info"] instead of either Hello World or Bonjour.

 

pretty dumb story i know..anyway, thank you guys very much

[MadTechie]

I find that using en.php & fr.php works quite well for out-sourcing

if you want to move it to a database then

create a table like this with 3 fields, Key (general-info), Lang (en), Wording("Hello world")

you could create a simple class to rebuild the array using the correct language