Extract required parameters to variables with a single line of code! (PHP)

[Note: this is for those not using sophisticated PHP frameworks (ZF, CakePHP, etc.), but using plain old PHP (Smarty is still OK and great!)]

How many times have you wanted to extract selected GET or POST or COOKIE variables into local/global variables to be used easily? Something like:

$submit = (int) $_REQUEST['submit'];
$name = $_REQUEST['name'];
$email = $_REQUEST['email'];
$preference = (int) $_REQUEST['preference'];

if ($submit) {
    if (!$name and !$email) {
        $error = 'Please fill in your name and email';
    } else {
        sql("insert into POST values (?, ?, ?)", $name, $email, $preference);
    }
}

And then at another page, you need to do the same thing over and over again (and you don't actually care whether it's GET or POST or...)

$start = (int) $_GET['start'];
$length = (int) $_GET['length'];
$locale = $_GET['locale'];

Solution: I have always been using this function to extract request variables to the global scope:

// first example
getVars('submit name email preference');
echo "Your name is $name"; // the variable $name is now available
// second example
getVars('start length locale');

Isn't it convenient?

How does getVars() function look like?

function getVars($vars) {
    if (is_string($vars)) {
        $vars = split(' ', $vars);
    }
    foreach ($vars as $var) {
        $GLOBALS[$var] = $_REQUEST[$var];
    }
}

The trick is to move the variables from $_REQUEST to $GLOBALS.
Now let's enhance it so that it converts the variables to int when needed:

function getVars($vars) {
    if (is_string($vars)) {
        $vars = split(' ', $vars);
    }
    foreach ($vars as $var) {
        $modifier = '';
        if (strpos($var, '/') !== false) {
            $tp = split('/', $var);
            $var = $tp[0];
            $modifier = $tp[1];
        }
        $value = $_REQUEST[$var];
        if ($modifier == 'hex') {
            $value = pack("H*", $value);
        } elseif ($modifier == 'int') {
            $value = (int)$value;
        }
        $GLOBALS[$var] = $value;
    }
}

We go back to the examples, we now have:

// first example
getVars('submit/int name email preference/int');
// second example
getVars('start/int length/int locale');

Such a useful function, Let us use it!

Tip: you can also write '/hex' to convert "414243" to "ABC"