Transform text coma in an array

I am working with the PayPal API and I am trying to add multiple items to my itemList. My problem is that to make the itemList work, the array needs multiples variables:

$itemList = new ItemList();
$itemList->setItems(array($item1, $item2));

I am using a loop before, to set-up the items, which I am trying to gather into one variable:

$allItems = "$item1, $item2";

It doesn’t work and I think that the problem is the coma, which I believe is read as plain text, and not as a “technical” coma (I do not know the term).

Please find here the full code for more clarity:

    for ($i = 0; $i < $_POST['totalItems']; $i++) {
        $product = $_POST['product'. $i];
        $quantity = $_POST['quantity'. $i];
        $price = $_POST['price'. $i];
        
        $n = $i + 1;
        
        ${'item'. $n} = new Item();
        ${'item'. $n}->setName($product)
            ->setCurrency('EUR')
            ->setQuantity($quantity)
            ->setPrice($price);
        
        if ($i == 0) {
            $allTheItems = ${'item'. $n};
        } elseif ($i < $_POST['totalItems']) {
            $allTheItems = $allTheItems .', '. ${'item'. $n};
        }
    }
    
    // We create the basket with the list of each item
    $itemList = new ItemList();
    $itemList->setItems(array($allTheItems));

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

Marc

Answer

You are creating a string with a list of the items and not an array of items. I’ve rewritten the code to make this process simpler – no need for variable variables and just add each item in the loop to an overall list of items (using $allTheItems[])…

// Create empty array
$allTheItems =[];
for ($i = 0; $i < $_POST['totalItems']; $i++) {
    // Create empty item for new data
    $newItem = new Item();
    // Add data to the temp item
    $newItem->setName($_POST['product'. $i])
        ->setCurrency('EUR')
        ->setQuantity($_POST['quantity'. $i])
        ->setPrice($_POST['price'. $i]);
    
    // Add temp item into list of items
    $allTheItems[] = $newItem;
}

// We create the basket with the list of each item
$itemList = new ItemList();
$itemList->setItems($allTheItems);