PHP syntax for dereferencing function result

Question

Background

In every other programming language I use on a regular basis, it is simple to operate on the return value of a function without declaring

Answer 1

Extremely ghetto, but, it can be done using only PHP. This utilizes a lambda function (which were introduced in PHP 5.3). See and be amazed (and, ahem, terrified):

function foo() {
    return array(
        'bar' => 'baz',
        'foo' => 'bar',
}

// prints 'baz'
echo call_user_func_array(function($a,$k) { 
    return $a[$k]; 
}, array(foo(),'bar'));

The lengths we have to go through to do something so beautiful in most other languages.

For the record, I do something similar to what Nolte does. Sorry if I made anyone's eyes bleed.