Creating an array from variable names

Question

When writing controllers for Symfony 2, I often need to pass quite a few variables to the template like return array('param1' => $param1, 'anotherBigParam' => $anotherBigParam, 'yetAnotherParam' => $yetAnotherParam);

With many parameters this ends up really long and ugly, so I thought about creating a helper function for it:

public function indexAction()
{
    $param1 = 'fee';
    $anotherBigParam = 'foe';
    $yetAnotherParam = 'fum';
    return $this->vars('param1', 'anotherBigParam', 'yetAnotherParam');
}

private function vars() {
    $arr = array();
    foreach(func_get_args() as $arg) {
        $arr[$arg] = $$arg;
    }
    return $arr;
}

Is there some kind of drawback or risk from doing this? Does PHP or Symfony 2 already provide a better or cleaner way to achieve the same result?

meouw · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-26 13:56:02Z

3

There is a native way of doing it: compact

$one = 'ONE';
$two = 'TWO';
$a = compact( 'one', 'two' );
print_r( $a );
/*
Array
(
    [one] => ONE
    [two] => TWO
)
*/

answered Apr 26, 2012 at 13:56

meouw

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gen_Eric · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-26 13:55:04Z

2

You're looking for compact.

public function indexAction()
{
    $param1 = 'fee';
    $anotherBigParam = 'foe';
    $yetAnotherParam = 'fum';
    return compact('param1', 'anotherBigParam', 'yetAnotherParam');
}

answered Apr 26, 2012 at 13:55

gen_Eric

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4 Comments

Kaivosukeltaja Over a year ago

I knew there had to be a native way! Thanks for both of the answers, I'll accept this one for it's ninja speed as soon as accepting becomes possible.

gen_Eric Over a year ago

@Kaivosukeltaja: PHP's got tons of built-in functions :-P

Kaivosukeltaja Over a year ago

@Rocket: True, it's a haystack of useful built-in functions and finding the right ones can be really challenging if it's a rarely needed one. I read through the list of array functions but skipped compact because it sounded more like it has something to do with compression...

gen_Eric Over a year ago

@Kaivosukeltaja: Yeah, some functions have interesting names. Like explode/implode.

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