PHP - scope perseverance - Codeigniter - php

Question

My question stems from a model I am writing to construct queries from predefined search objects that contain 'criteria', each search has a property $search->criteria that is an array of criteria objects....
Criteria (
"name" => "name", //name of given field to be searched
"expr" => "expr", //could be "<=" ">=" "="
"s_value" => "value" //value to be searched with
)
and the part of my search function that is adding the proper where statements to the query...
if(count($criteria)) {
foreach($criteria as $crit) {
$this->{$crit['name']}($crit['s_value'],$crit['expr']);
}
}
And now finally the function that loop is calling, 'name' here corresponds with whatever the criteria object has set as $criteria['name']....
function name($value,$expr = '=') {
$this->db->where('specific_field_name '.$expr,$value);
}
Now for the question..
I want to create a variable inside 'name' that will persist beyond a single execution, so for instance, if I have 2 criteria with the same name and it executes twice, I want to maintain a variable in it's scope for multiple executions.
EDIT
What I WANT to do. I have multple functions like this that all need their own counters.
function name($value,$expr = '=') {
if(isset($count))
$this->db->or_where('specific_field_name '.$expr,$value);
$count++;
}
else {
$count = 1;
$this->db->where('specific_field_name '.$expr,$value);
}
}
Ideas?
SOLUTION
if(count($criteria)) {
$criteria_count = array()
foreach($criteria as $crit) {
if(isset($criteria_count[$crit['name']])) {
$criteria_count[$crit['name']]++;
}
else {
$criteria_count[$crit['name']] = 1;
}
$this->{$crit['name']}($crit['s_value'],$crit['expr'],$criteria_count[$crit['name']]);
}
}
Changed the main search function to maintain a $criteria_count array with the names as keys and passing the count down to the specific functions.

Answer 1

You could use the global statement if you really want to do it this way.
Edit: here is how I might pass count into name and keep track of it that way.
At beginning of search function: $count = 0;
if(count($criteria)) {
foreach($criteria as $crit) {
$count = $this->{$crit['name']}($crit['s_value'],$crit['expr'],$count);
}
}
And then the name function:
function name($value,$expr = '=',$count) {
if($count > 0)
$this->db->or_where('specific_field_name '.$expr,$value);
$count++;
}
else {
$count = 1;
$this->db->where('specific_field_name '.$expr,$value);
}
return $count;
}