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

There are three ways to do the same thing:

1. As Chacha102 says, use a function to return the index value:

   function get($from, $id){
       return $from[$id];
   }
   

   Then, you can use:

   get($foo->getBarArray(),0);
   

   to obtain the first element and so on.

2. A lazy way using current and array_slice:

   $first = current(array_slice($foo->getBarArray(),0,1));
   $second = current(array_slice($foo->getBarArray(),1,1));
   

3. Using the same function to return both, the array and the value:

   class FooClass {
       function getBarArray($id = NULL) {
           $array = array();
   
           // Do something to get $array contents
   
           if(is_null($id))
               return $array;
           else
               return $array[$id];
           }
   }
   

   Then you can obtain the entire array and a single array item.

   $array = $foo->getBarArray();
   

   or

   $first_item = $foo->getBarArray(0);