php variables to array - opposite of "extract" - php

Question

PHP has a function extract that will convert an array like this:
$array = array(
'var1' => 1,
'var2' => 2
);
to:
$var1 = 1;
$var2 = 2;
now, I need the opposite, i have few variables:
$var3 = 'test';
$test = 'another';
$datax = 1;
that needs to be:
$array = array(
'var3' => 'test',
'test' => 'another',
'datax' => 1
);
Is there something like this in PHP?

Answer 1

You can use compact() to achieve this.
$var3 = 'test';
$test = 'another';
$datax = 1;
$array = compact('var3', 'test', 'datax');
Reference: http://php.net/manual/en/function.compact.php

Answer 2

like this
$preDefined = (get_defined_vars());
$var3 = 'test';
$test = 'another';
$datax = "1";
$newDefined = array_diff(get_defined_vars(), $preDefined);
print_r($newDefined);

Answer 3

$array = get_defined_vars()
See get_defined_vars()

Answer 4

You'd have to be really sure you wanted to do this (it includes things in the global scope automatically) but you can use
$my_vars = get_defined_vars();
If you want it more selective than that, you could look at filtering it like this:
$my_vars = pack_vars(get_defined_vars())
function pack_vars ($defined_vars)
{
$packed = array();
$ignored = array('dont_use_this', 'ignored_var', 'ignore_this_too');
foreach ($defined_vars AS $key => $value)
{
if (!in_array($key, $ignored))
{
$packed[$key] = $value;
}
}
return $packed;
}