CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I  have already implemented a custom mail merge token that deals with relationships.   The current setup is that I have a custom relationship type called "observes in memory of"  that is many-to-many for individuals.  I also have implemented a custom search and a custom mail merge token that utilizes this relationship.

Lets say I have a contact "Josh Smith" who has a "observes in memory of" relationship with "Harry Smith" and "Elana Smith"

When I run my custom search, I will get 2 rows:
mourner        name of deceased
Josh Smith      Harry Smith
Josh Smith      Elana Smith


Next I choose the "send email" action to send emails to Josh Smith. ( Yes, I know he will get 2 emails.) and compose the email using my custom mail merge token.  Currently the token logic grabs every contact that Josh has the "observes in memory of" relationship with. The email then looks like this:
----------------------------
Dear Josh,

blah blah

Name of deceased:
Harry Smith
Elana Smith
--------------------------

Now the issue is I would like to change the mail-merge token to only display "Harry Smith" for the first email for Josh, and only Elana for the second email for Josh.    But the token logic does not seem to have any means of knowing its on the first letter or the second letter.   Any ideas on how to accomplish this?

Thanks,
Sarah

How would I code my hook to remember how many times it had been called? Where would I store $n, $cid so that I can read its value on the next iteration?

I could put it a global variable, but how would I ensure that when a different user is using the same token ( or the same end-user, running a new search ) does not get the value from the previous or different search?