Using a variable to call another variable

PHP List, I have a list of variables: $001 $002 $003 $004 And what I'd like to do is have a function which will select and return one of them. Something like: public function returnVar($n) { return $(somehow n is made to reference the name of the variable); } And then in later scripts I can call anyone of the variables by saying returnVar(001) Or something like that. I've been scratching my head on how to do this for a while. I thought the answer might lie somewhere in call_user_func(), but even if it is I can't determine how. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you for your time. -- Dave M G Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Kernel 2.6.17.7 Pentium D Dual Core Processor PHP 5, MySQL 5, Apache 2