eval not working with object variable?!?

[b3nj]

This seems like it's just a basic error on my part, but I can't see where. I've have been struggling with it for ages and am not getting anywhere - please could somebody take a look and see where i'm going wrong...

I have a table object, and I want to pass in a string to format a result set:

$tbl = new table('members');
$tbl->formatRow="<tr><td>{$row[0]}</td></tr>";

And then within the table class:

echo (eval('?>' . $this->formatRow . '<?php '));

But this just returns "<tr><td></td></tr>".

If I assign $this->formatRow the string within the class itself:

$this->formatRow="<tr><td>{$row[0]}</td></tr>";
echo (eval('?>' . $this->formatRow . '<?php '));

it does work. So it just doesn't evaluate the variable if its passed in from outside the class. I have checked that the variable isn't getting overwritten anywhere (and it is getting the html part of the string). 

Any help greatly appreciated. thank u



 

[Ninjakreborn]

use something other than eval

[b3nj]

thanks for your help. I will use something else if there's no alternative - but i'd quite like to understand why this method isn't working, as it seems to me that it should be ok. Is there a reason why eval shouldn't be used on object variables?   

[Ninjakreborn]

I really don't know why.  But throughout my entire career, and before that when I was studying, I heard it was very bad to use eval at all.  I even read somewhere, the owner himself repeated these exact words
"If eval is the answer you aren't asking the right questions".  So I think that means quite a bit, I never used it because of that.  Other than that I am not sure.

[Ninjakreborn]

well, search eval, I found out some stuff about vuneribilities, it didn't sound too promising at php.net either.

[b3nj]

oh ok, i didn't know that about eval - i'll go for a different approach then. Thanks very much for your advice.