set product attribute where attribute is string

Question

To set an attribute val I would use:

$product->setNameofmyattribute('somestuff');

Now I have the name of my attribute in a string.

So how can I merge:

$attribute = 'Nameofmyattribute';
$product->set[here comes my string]('somestuff');

Answer 1

You can use setDataUsingMethod() defined in Varien_Object.
For example, if your attribute is called some_attribute the following are identical:

$product->setSomeAttribute('some_value');  
$product->setDataUsingMethod('some_attribute', 'some_value');

[Edit: and a bit off topic]
It works the same way for getters:

$product->getSomeAttribute();

is the same as

$product->getDataUsingMethod('some_attribute');

Answer 2

PHP can interpret this automatically, but you'll have to prepend the set keyword:

$attribute = 'Nameofmyattribute';
$setter = 'set' . $attribute;
$product->$setter('somestuff');