PHP: Can I reference a single member of an array that is returned by a function?

Question

any idea how if the following is possible in PHP as a single line ?:

... It doesn

Answer 1

Either current($array) or array_shift($array) will work, the former will leave the array intact.

Answer 2

I actually use a convenience function i wrote for such purposes:

/**
 * Grabs an element from an array using a key much like array_pop
 */
function array_key_value($array, $key) {
    if(!empty($array) && array_key_exists($key, $array)) {
        return $array[$key];
    }
    else {
        return FALSE;
    }
}

then you just call it like so:

$result = array_key_value(getMeAnArray(), 'arrayKey');

Answer 3

http://us3.php.net/reset

Only available in php version 5.

Answer 4

Try:

<?php
$firstElement = reset(functionThatReturnsAnArray());

If you're just looking for the first element of the array.

Answer 5

nickf, good to know, thanks. Unfortunately that has readability problems beyond a few commas.

Answer 6

Well, I have found a couple of ways to get what you want without calling another function.

$firstElement = ($t = functionThatReturnsAnArray()) ? $t[0] : false;

and for strings you could use

$string = (($t = functionThatReturnsAnArray())==0) . $t[0];

.. Interesting problem

Draco