When to use a variable variable in PHP?

Question

I\'ve been developing in PHP for a while now, and I still have not had a task where I\'ve had to use variable variables. Can anyone give me examples where using them is a go

Answer 1

I haven't found many uses for variable variables but using variables for methods can be handy, as long as what you're doing is clear. For example in a simple REST service you might do something like this:

$method = $request->getMethod(); // 'post','get','put','delete'
try 
{
    $response = $resource->$method($request->getInput());
}
catch (BadMethodException $badMethod)
{
    $response = $responseFactory->getError($badMethod);
}

Some would argue you could do this equally well with a switch statement (which you could) but this way lends itself to extensibility (if you decide to add another method type) and maintains the abstraction of applying a method on a resource.