Putting variables inside variables?

[TheJoshMan]

Is this possible? I'm working with Wordpress for my site, and wanted to do some customization of my theme. The theme displays a tiny bit of info about the author of each post like the username they login with, how many posts they've written, and if they give a "bio" about themselves it includes that too...

What I want to do is to add a small bit of funny text below where it tells how many posts the user has made via PHP. I've found a script I'm using right now which I have gotten to work just fine. The problem is, some of the phrases I want to use would require to display the user's name (their login name), but I can't seem to figure out how to put that variable inside the array of things to say.

Here's the code, then below that I'll post the variation I tried to call the users' names.
The first code is what wordpress uses internally to call the post author's username/nickname
The second code is the random phrase script

                   <?php echo $curauth->nickname; ?>

<?php 
                          $slyterm[] = '...We think';
                          $slyterm[] = 'Yes, we\'re counting.';
                          $slyterm[] = 'Support your <del>local</del> <strong><del>global</del></strong> <strong>GALACTIC</strong> writer people!';
                          $slyterm[] = 'We are assuming this one was written with "love" as well... (no guarantees)';
                          $slyterm[] = 'The buzz on the street is that this post was written with <em>love</em>...';

                          srand ((double) microtime() * 1000000);
                          $random_number = rand(0,count($slyterm)-1);
                          echo ($slyterm[$random_number]);
                          ?>

Now here is what I added to try and call the user's nickname into the array...

$slyterm[] = 'We believe that $curauth->nickname only writes these to get the attention they were lacking as a child...'; 

[Nile]

$slyterm[] = "We believe that $curauth->nickname only writes these to get the attention they were lacking as a child..."; 

[Twey]

$slyterm[] = sprintf('We believe that %s only writes these to get the attention they were lacking as a child...', $curauth->nickname);

[TheJoshMan]

$slyterm[] = "We believe that $curauth->nickname only writes these to get the attention they were lacking as a child..."; 

that outputs like this...

We believe that only writes these to get the attention they were lacking as a child...

[TheJoshMan]

$slyterm[] = sprintf('We believe that %s only writes these to get the attention they were lacking as a child...', $curauth->nickname);

This one also outputs the same as above, it just completely removes that section that should display the post author's nickname.

We believe that only writes these to get the attention they were lacking as a child...

[Twey]

That means that $curauth->nickname is empty.

[Nile]

Run this code:

if(empty($curauth->nickname) || !isset($nickname)){
die('It is empty, or got unset.');
}
echo "It's fine, its not unset, or empty"; 

Tell us the output.

[bluewalrus]

$slyterm[] = "We believe that" . $curauth->nickname . "only writes these to get the attention they were lacking as a child...";
echo $slyterm[];

[jimbob79]

                   <?php echo $curauth->nickname; ?>

<?php 
                          $slyterm[] = '...We think';
                          $slyterm[] = 'Yes, we\'re counting.';
                          $slyterm[] = 'Support your <del>local</del> <strong><del>global</del></strong> <strong>GALACTIC</strong> writer people!';
                          $slyterm[] = 'We are assuming this one was written with "love" as well... (no guarantees)';
                          $slyterm[] = 'The buzz on the street is that this post was written with <em>love</em>...';

                          srand ((double) microtime() * 1000000);
                          $random_number = rand(0,count($slyterm)-1);
                          echo ($slyterm[$random_number]);
                          ?>

Now here is what I added to try and call the user's nickname into the array...

$slyterm[] = 'We believe that $curauth->nickname only writes these to get the attention they were lacking as a child...'; 

Can I have your permission to use this script? I might like to use it for random quotes or something.

[TheJoshMan]

umm... sure you can use it.... If you can use it. LOL

It's not my script man, so go right ahead. I can't even remember where I found it. I didn't see any disclaimer that came with it, so I'm assuming it's free for distribution.