PHP - scope perseverance - Codeigniter

My question stems from a model I am writing to construct queries from predefined search objects that contain 'criteria', each search has a property $search->criteria that is an array of criteria objects....

Criteria (

    "name"    => "name",  //name of given field to be searched
    "expr"    => "expr",  //could be "<=" ">=" "="
    "s_value" => "value"  //value to be searched with

)

and the part of my search function that is adding the proper where statements to the query...

    if(count($criteria)) {
        foreach($criteria as $crit) {
            $this->{$crit['name']}($crit['s_value'],$crit['expr']);
        }
    }

And now finally the function that loop is calling, 'name' here corresponds with whatever the criteria object has set as $criteria['name']....

function name($value,$expr = '=') {              

    $this->db->where('specific_field_name '.$expr,$value);

}

Now for the question..

I want to create a variable inside 'name' that will persist beyond a single execution, so for instance, if I have 2 criteria with the same name and it executes twice, I want to maintain a variable in it's scope for multiple executions.

EDIT

What I WANT to do. I have multple functions like this that all need their own counters.

function name($value,$expr = '=') {              
    if(isset($count))        
        $this->db->or_where('specific_field_name '.$expr,$value);
        $count++;
    }
    else {
        $count = 1;
        $this->db->where('specific_field_name '.$expr,$value);
    }
}

Ideas?

SOLUTION

    if(count($criteria)) {
        $criteria_count = array()
        foreach($criteria as $crit) {
            if(isset($criteria_count[$crit['name']])) {
                $criteria_count[$crit['name']]++;
            }
     开发者_如何学C       else {
                $criteria_count[$crit['name']] = 1;
            }
            $this->{$crit['name']}($crit['s_value'],$crit['expr'],$criteria_count[$crit['name']]);
        }
    }

Changed the main search function to maintain a $criteria_count array with the names as keys and passing the count down to the specific functions.

---

You could use the global statement if you really want to do it this way.

Edit: here is how I might pass count into name and keep track of it that way.

At beginning of search function: $count = 0;

if(count($criteria)) {
        foreach($criteria as $crit) {
            $count = $this->{$crit['name']}($crit['s_value'],$crit['expr'],$count);
        }
    }

And then the name function:

function name($value,$expr = '=',$count) {              
    if($count > 0)        
        $this->db->or_where('specific_field_name '.$expr,$value);
        $count++;
    }
    else {
        $count = 1;
        $this->db->where('specific_field_name '.$expr,$value);
    }
return $count;
}