How do I get the last used variable in PHP?

Question

in bash there is something like

$_

which is a temporary variable that stores the last argument of previous command

is there a similar variable or construct in PHP or how can I access the last used variable in the script?

this would be very handy for simple debugging functions or if you need a function that you have to add in several places at your code.

Or you could add something like:

do_some_more($_);

in several places in your code

@perdeu I think [$_ in perl](http://perlmaven.com/the-default-variable-of-perl) and [$_ in bash](http://www.thegeekstuff.com/tag/bash-_-variable/) both exist, and do different things... — Matt Gibson, Nov 05 '13 at 12:26
`$_` makes sense in bash because you do have commands. But what'd be the PHP equivalent to commands? What does "use a variable" mean? In `list($a, $b) = foo($c, $d+$e);`, what'd be the last used variable? — Álvaro González, Nov 05 '13 at 12:37
What you want to do has no sense. That thing in bash allows you to not to have to re-type stuff to repeat them. There is no such issue in PHP, thanks to what we call functions... — Virus721, Nov 05 '13 at 12:40

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 05 '13 at 12:25

0

There is no such feature in PHP.

$_ is just like any other variable.

$_ = 'hello world';

echo $_; // hello world

answered Nov 05 '13 at 12:25

sure, but that was not the question. I tried $_ before I asked here – rubo77 Nov 05 '13 at 12:29
2

@rubo The answer is *"There is no such feature in PHP."* – deceze Nov 05 '13 at 12:32
I could imagin a construct that finds out with the help of debug_backtrace like here: http://stackoverflow.com/a/19788805/1069083 – rubo77 Nov 05 '13 at 12:37
@rubo Maybe so, and if you write a custom PHP extension you may be able to add a "real" `$_` to PHP. But the point is that there's no such thing built in, and as several people pointed out in the comments, the exact function of bash's `$_` is hardly applicable to PHP to begin with. – deceze Nov 05 '13 at 14:24
How would such a custom PHP extension look like? – rubo77 Nov 05 '13 at 17:15
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@rubo If you have to ask, don't even go there. And define unambiguously how exactly it should work to begin with (see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19788891/how-do-i-get-the-last-used-variable-in-php/19788977#comment29415589_19788891). – deceze Nov 05 '13 at 17:57

1 Answers1