How to create a multiple dyanmic object reference in PHP?

I have a string with 'item->anotheritem'

I want to use this as a dyanmic variable. Is this possible? e.g:

$string = 'item->anotheritem';
$obj->$string;

Ultimately trying to end up with the following, but it doesn't seem to like it. Any i开发者_高级运维deas?:

$object->item->anotheritem;

Using PHP Version 5.3.2

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In the first block of code, are you trying to parse the variable name as a string to the variable $string? It doesn't match what you are trying to doing in the second code.

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There are two ways to do this. First, you can manually break up the string and evaluate each element on the object, or second you can use PHP's eval() function. I don't recommend the latter, though since it is very scary from a security standpoint. Here is what those two mechanisms look like:

<?php
// Get some test data...
$obj = new stdClass;
$obj->item = new stdClass;
$obj->item->anotheritem = "Goal!";
$string = 'item->anotheritem';

// Method #1
$target = $obj;
$parts = explode('->', $string);
foreach ($parts as $part) {
    $target = $target->{$part};
}
var_dump($target);

// Method #2 -- Avoid like the plague! ;)
$target2 = eval('return $obj->item->anotheritem;');
var_dump($target2);