Use Variable as Function Name in PHP [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Use a variable to define a PHP function

Is there a way of using a variable as a function name.

For example i have a variable

$varibaleA; 

and I want to create a function i.e.

function $variableA() { } 

so this function can be called later in the script. Does anyone know if this can be done?

Thanks

Answer 1

Declaring a function with a variable but arbitrary name like this is not possible without getting your hands dirty with eval() or include().

I think based on what you're trying to do, you'll want to store an anonymous function in that variable instead (use create_function() if you're not on PHP 5.3+):

$variableA = function() {     // Do stuff }; 

You can still call it as you would any variable function, like so:

$variableA(); 

Answer 2

$x = 'file_get_contents'; $html = $x('http://google.com'); 

is functionally equivalent to doing

$html = file_get_contents('http://google.com'); 

They're called variable functions, and generally should be avoided as they're too far removed from variable variables.