php Increment name of variable in a loop

Question

I thought of a while loop but cant find the way around this:

$foo1 = get_post_meta( $post->ID, '_item1', true );
if (!empty($foo1)){
    echo  ("<div class='$foo1'></div>"); 
}

$foo2 = get_post_meta( $post->ID, '_item2', true );
if (!empty($foo2)){
    echo  ("<div class='$foo2'></div>"); 
}

And so on... for a hundred times until I reach $foo100 and _item100 Any idea to achieve this to not repeat these 4 lines over and over?

Sirko · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-03T22:22:01.653

2

You don't need variable variables for that, but just a for loop like this:

for( $i=1; $i<101; $i++ ) {
  $klass = get_post_meta( $post->ID, '_item' . $i, true );
  if( !empty($klass) ) {
     echo "<div class='$klass'></div>"; 
  }
}

This works as long as you do not need the $fooX variables later on. If you need them, you would have to use either mentioned variable variables or an array to collect all the values.

edited Jun 03 '13 at 22:22

answered Jun 03 '13 at 22:12

Sirko

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Ha thanks! yes I was complicating things with the variable variables. I will upvote when I get more rep. – Seolead Jun 04 '13 at 06:17

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 05 '18 at 14:08

you're thinking well at a while loop

You could use:

   $counter = 1;
   while ($counter< 100) // or whatever limit you have
   {
       $foo = get_post_meta( $post->ID, '_item' . $counter , true );
         if (!empty($foo)){
           echo  ("<div class='$foo' . $counter .' ></div>"); 
              }
     $counter++;
    }

If you copy this code you're probably get into some compiling errors because of the string concatenation.

Basically you need to concatenate "_item" string with your current $counter.

Here are some string concatenation examples.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you Dan Dinu, will upvote when I get more rep for sure. — Seolead, Jun 04 '13 at 06:17

php Increment name of variable in a loop

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