PHP's compact() function creates an associative array through variable name strings, using the method to pass the variable name as a parameter, such as compact('var1', 'var2'). 1. The function maps the variable name to an array key, and the value is its current value; 2. If the variable does not exist, it will be ignored silently; 3. It is often used to batch pass variables to templates or functions to improve the simplicity of the code; 4. It supports passing in string arrays, such as compact(['a', 'b']) is equivalent to passing parameters one by one; 5. Note that the variable name must be spelled correctly and exists in the current scope, otherwise the value cannot be obtained.
The compact()
function in PHP is a handy tool for creating an associated array from existing variables. It takes one or more variable names as strings and returns an array where the keys are the variable names and the values ??are the corresponding variable values.

How to Use compact()
The basic syntax is:

compact(var1, var2, ...)
Each argument is a string representing the name of a variable. Here's a simple example:
$name = "Alice"; $age = 30; $result = compact('name', 'age'); print_r($result); // Output: // Array // ( // [name] => Alice // [age] => 30 // )
If the variable doesn't exist, it won't be included in the result — no error, just silently skipped.

When You Might Use It
A common use case is when you're passing multiple variables to a template or function and want to avoid repeating yourself.
For example, instead of writing:
extract(compact('title', 'content', 'author'));
You could use compact()
directly to pass data into another context like a view renderer.
This becomes especially useful in frameworks or templating systems where you might want to bundle related variables together without manually building the array.
What to Watch Out For
One thing that trips people up: compact()
uses the variable name as a string to look up the value. So if you have a typo or misspell the variable name, it simply won't show up in the output.
Also, if you're using variable variables or dynamic variable names, compact()
may not behave how you expect. For instance:
$a = 1; $b = 2; $varNames = ['a', 'b']; $result = compact($varNames); // This works!
Yes, you can also pass an array of strings, like this:
compact(['a', 'b']);
Which gives the same result as compact('a', 'b')
.
But if you try to do something like dynamically generating the list of variable names, make sure they're valid strings and that those variables actually exist in the current scope.
So, yeah — compact()
is straightforward once you get used to how it pulls in variables by name. Just remember it's looking for real variables in the current context and ignores any names that don't match.
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