php - Convert a String to Variable

Question

I've got a multidimensional associative array which includes an elements like

$data["status"]
$data["response"]["url"]
$data["entry"]["0"]["text"]

I've got a strings like:

$string = 'data["status"]';
$string = 'data["response"]["url"]';
$string = 'data["entry"]["0"]["text"]';

How can I convert the strings into a variable to access the proper array element? This method will need to work across any array at any of the dimensions.

Answer 1

PHP's variable variables will help you out here. You can use them by prefixing the variable with another dollar sign:

$foo = "Hello, world!";
$bar = "foo";
echo $$bar; // outputs "Hello, world!"