How to array list unknown number of values

Question

I want to do this:

list($a, $b, $c) = array('a', 'b', 'c');
my_function($a, $b, $c);

BUT with unknown number of values in the array

my_function(some_function($array));

Any ideas?

Answer 1

You can pass the array to your function instead, this way you get all variables. If your array has keys, you can use the PHP extract() function.

// Build data array. Include keys as these will become the variable name later.
$data = array('a' => 'a', 'b' => 'b', 'c' => 'c');

// Call your function with data
my_function($data);

// Your function to parse data...
function my_function($data = NULL)
{
    // Verify you got data..
    if(is_null($data)){ return FALSE; }

    // Extract the array so that each value in the array gets assigned to a variable by it's key.
    extract($data);

    // Now you may echo values
    echo $a.$b.$c;
}

Another, more common option would be to loop through the array. Using a foreach loop you can reference each value of the array one at a time. This can be done like so:

// Build data array. Include keys as these will become the variable name later.
$data = array('a','b','c');

// Call your function with data
my_function($data);

// Your function to parse data...
function my_function($data = NULL)
{
    // Verify you got data..
    if(is_null($data)){ return FALSE; }

    // Loop through data to operate
    foreach($data as $item)
    {
        // Now you may echo values
        echo $item;
    }
}

Answer 2

If you pass an array as a parameter to a function, you may use a foreach loop to iterate through an array of any length.

someFunction($returnedArray){

 foreach($returnedArray as $value){
  echo $value
 }
}

The foreach will go element by element, assigning the current index's value to (in this case) $value.

Answer 3

Just don't use list() function.

Pass an array to function. my_function(array(a, b, c,...)). It will be better if you will use hash array. Also extract() is not a good idea.

See: this blog and SO Post