Does .NET natively support anything similar to PHP's variable variables?
If not, how1 could such a feature be most easily implemented?
1 If you think variable variables are always bad, feel free to state your case but the main question is: how can they be implemented?
This is a feature deeply embedded in dynamic languages. C# has its roots as a static, object-oriented language, and up to C# 3.0 this means no luck accomplishing what you want in any proper way. However, C# 4.0/.NET 4.0 introduces the dynamic keyword, which allows variables to be dynamically typed, as in PHP. Unfortunately, although this is a leap forward in the path of C# becoming a static/dynamic hybrid language, it is missing the crucial eval function that almost every dynamic language has. With the rumoured compiler-as-a-service feature of C# 5.0/.NET 5.0, this will effectively be introduced (though the internal behaviour would not be the same). Until then, there's no decent solution short of the hack of using a Dictionary to store variable names.