PHP - Get array reference by his string name - php

Question

If I do this:
$array = ["one", "two", "three"];
$array_copy = "$array"; // or "{$array}"
I doesn't get the original array but instead a string conversion of it. ¿Is there any way to acomplish this task? To get the array reference by his string name.
Thank you.
Edit:
I am aware of this:
$array = ["one", "two", "three"];
$array_copy = $"array";
or
$name = "array";
$array_copy = $$name
But I need to achive this in any situation. Example:
$array = ["one", "two", "three" => ["four"] ];
$sub_array = "{$array['three']}"; // this returns an string, not the array ["four"]
I hope is more clear now.
Edit 2
Let's put it in other way. Imagine you need that an user input (string) be able to access the content of any declared variable. Example:
$customer = [ "name"=>"Peter", "address"=> ["street"=>"5th", "number"=>1969] ];
$variable_name = $_GET["varname"];
var_export( $$variable_name ); // What can write the user to print $customer["address"] array?

Answer 1

because you equal to string, just do it directly
$array_copy = $array
but copy is just copy, not a referense, if you want reference you should write like this
$array_copy = &$array
but there are should be reasons to get the reference
or if you have some variable with array name then you can do like this
$array = ["one", "two", "three"];
$arrayName = 'array';
$array_copy = $$arrayName;

Answer 2

You may use a function that takes a path such as customer.address as a parameter to retrieve the address index of the $customer array automatically:
$customer = ['name' => 'Peter', 'address' => ['street' => '5th', 'number' => 1969]];
/**
* #param array $array
* #param string $path A dot-separated property path.
* #param mixed $default
* #return mixed
*/
function getArrayValue(array $array, string $path, $default = null)
{
$parts = explode('.', $path);
return array_reduce($parts, static function ($value, $part) use ($default) {
return $value[$part] ?? $default;
}, $array);
}
/**
* #param string $path A dot-separated path, whose first part is a var name available in the global scope.
* #param mixed $default
* #return mixed
*/
function getGlobalArrayValue(string $path, $default = null)
{
#list($varName, $propertyPath) = explode('.', $path, 2);
return getArrayValue($GLOBALS[$varName] ?? [], $propertyPath, $default);
}
echo getGlobalArrayValue('customer.name'), PHP_EOL; // Peter
echo getGlobalArrayValue('customer.address.street'), PHP_EOL; // '5th'
echo getGlobalArrayValue('customer.address.idontexist', 'somedefaultvalue'), PHP_EOL; // 'somedefaultvalue'
echo getGlobalArrayValue('idontexist.address', 12); // 12
Demo: https://3v4l.org/O6h2P