eCommerce systemLife
Misc
I remember once watching a documentary on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s bodybuilding career (or was it this one?) in the ’70s and early ’80s.
All of the bodybuilders in that golden era had their own training programme managers and promoters. I recall that one manager/promoter, working for another bodybuilder, loved his own quotes.
These quotes would range from the urbane, “the pen is mightier than the muscle”, to somewhat more characteristically humorous: “remember the golden rule: he who has the gold, makes the rules“.
Well, in the completely unrelated world of PHP programming, this perl of wisdom (sic joke) is worth hanging on to. Why? Well, if you have ever used PHP’s variable variables, knowledge of the correct syntax is worth its weight in gold. It’ll save hours, if not days, of debugging.
So, anyway, I’ve been coding a calendar system for a valued client for the past ten days or so. My first attempt I pretty much scrapped as it got too complex and almost impossible to debug. The second version is much better, except for one issue which has been giving me grief until now.
Variable variables in PHP are extremely useful, but I throw in a word of caution immediately: use them sparingly. It can be easy to quickly lose track of what’s called what and why it’s there. Especially if any single script is 400+ lines long.
To set a variable variable, it’s easier to start off giving a value to an ordinary variable:
$myVar = "myVarVar";Now, I want to create a variable variable with the name $myVarVar, so this is how it’s done:
$$myVar = "this is my variable variable";To see the contents of the variable variable, you can do either of the following:
echo $$myVar; // or
echo $myVarVar; Both will output “this is my variable variable” to the screen/page.
Snooker Loopy
Things start getting interesting when you introduce arrays and loops. Take the following example:
for($i=0; $i<4; $i++) {
$myVar = "myVarVar".$i;
$$myVar = " Variable variable £".$i;
}
echo $myVarVar0; // "Variable variable #0"
echo $myVarVar1; // "Variable variable #1"
echo $myVarVar2; // "Variable variable #2"
echo $myVarVar3; // "Variable variable #3"
Life
– reacquaint myself with yellow sash routinesMisc
This week
shopping cart system Life
Misc
I think it may be a good idea to start calling this “Fortnightly [p]review”…
Last week
This week
Work
Life
– reacquaint myself with yellow sash routinesMisc
In the fast lane for the past fortnight, hence no preview/review last week.
Last week
Work
Life
Misc
This week
Work
Life
Misc
An absolutely fantastic weekend really gives you renewed strength for the week ahead. This is a busy week outside of work, though, so a refined set of objectives is the order of the day.
Work
Life
Misc
My “Get real! :-)” week was pretty good. Lots achieved.
Work
Unplanned extras
Life
Misc
My life doesn’t revolve around the television. I don’t watch any terrestrial broadcasts. I am especially uninterested in “prime”-time offerings (e.g. soaps). Ugh. Instead…
!!
: Finish The Plan
and try to start Caprica
!
because I can’t help myself 😉This week
It’s a sea-change. Day off planned, plus lots of stuff happening outside of work mean I’m taking a break from planning anything at all. A number of loose ends to tie up and various new ideas to ponder mean I’ll still be busy thinking all week. 🙂
“Hindsight is a beautiful thing”, I was recently reminded. With hindsight, last week wasn’t the super-catch-up exercise I’d hoped. But, instead, it was a good week for new ideas (all captured, naturally).
Last week:
Get back on track!
Work
Life
Misc
Would like to see more:
This week:
Get real! 🙂
Work
Life
Misc
My life doesn’t revolve around the television. I don’t watch any terrestrial broadcasts. I am especially uninterested in “prime”-time offerings (e.g. soaps). Ugh. Instead…
!!: Finish The Plan and try to start Caprica ! because I can’t help myself 😉Bit late to say week commencing yesterday, but never mind! Last week continued the tradition, this summer at least, of unending hot, sticky days. Regardless, it was a good week for many reasons, though perhaps not the best in history 🙂
Last week:
Work
I have continued to make more progress on project “W”, such that it’s starting to take on momentum of its own. With luck, August will see it come to fruition.
Life
I took to playing with Android on my Samsung Omnia during the weekend. Linux (the OS in general, not just the kernel) is so hackable it’s great. Managed to work around a low memory condition issue.
Misc
Saw:
This week:
Get back on track!
Work
Life
Misc
Would like to see more:
Last week was fantastic. Lots of stuff achieved, plus a few blockers along the way which have spilled over into this week and new challenges. To top off last week, a close friend of mine had a great birthday BBQ on Saturday and then became a father on Sunday. Congrats to them!
Last week:
Work
** DONE Investigate why CentOS box is looking for dpkg (Debian packager) in cron job
** DONE Revise Project “W” PDF
** WAITING Put project “W” site online?
Life
** DONE Clean car
Misc
This Week
Work
An unscheduled but important piece of work is also project “W”. I have made significant progress on this over the weekend and need to keep the pace up!
Life
Misc
Would like to see more:
