Comments on: [PHP6] function-return-array idea!

By: TheGuy

TheGuy — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 11:11:26 +0000

learn some english, then make demands

By: PHPDeveloper.org

PHPDeveloper.org — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 18:05:38 +0000

Stijn Leenknegt’s Blog: [PHP6] function-return-array idea!…

…

By: Stijn Leenknegt

Stijn Leenknegt — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 19:30:23 +0000

My english is bad, but if you are real coders you should understand this “problem” only by reading the code!

By: developercast.com » Stijn Leenknegt’s Blog: [PHP6] function-return-array idea!

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 20:44:09 +0000

[…] Leenknegt has posted a suggestion of his directed towards the developers behind PHP6 for a different way to return array values that […]

By: Kevin Haynes

Kevin Haynes — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 23:59:49 +0000

This is a really good idea. Let’s hope the PHP 6 dev team gets wind of it and decides to include it.

By: dmondark

dmondark — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 00:42:58 +0000

@TheGuy
If all english speakers are such smart guys, the world would be a great place to live it. Besides, all the great web programming languages where created by NON-ENGLISH speakers. So my suggestion to you is to go grab a bear in one hand and a tv remote in the other and find a sofa to spend your rest of your life on.

@Stijn
Sorry I had to reply that “Guy”… Nice suggestion, I will try adding it to the php parser. I will try to send you the C++ code if you want so you can post it as part of the suggestion to the PHP team.

By: Sean

Sean — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 04:59:33 +0000

This is done in other languages (Python being one of them) and it’s great. I’d love to see that in PHP.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 08:36:37 +0000

This is a well known problem of Zend Engine, and this syntax would definitely help a lot.

By: Thomas Koch

Thomas Koch — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 10:02:12 +0000

No. Because:

You should not return data structures as arrays! Returning arrays is only allowed in terms of “clean” programming, if the array is a list of similiar elements.
If you want to return a data structure, then return it as an object:

echo returnObject()->someProperty->functionObj1();

If you’re using an opcode cache, then there’s nearly no performance loss in using objects instead of arrays.

By: Stijn Leenknegt

Stijn Leenknegt — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 10:37:37 +0000

@dmondark: you may try that would be nice, less work for the php dev team :p
@Thomas Koch: it’s not only for classes, but also for functions.

By: MonkeyT

MonkeyT — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 12:45:29 +0000

@Thomas Koch: That’s a fairly Object Obsessive Programming point of view. I understand the advantages of returning an object when you need the structure, but given PHP’s history as a procedural, loosely-typed language, I see no problem with providing a syntax for returning arrays. There’s nothing to prevent you from returning a single object if you want to.

By: CJ

CJ — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 19:29:21 +0000

Excellent idea! This can be done in javascript, why not PHP?

By: Amenthes

Amenthes — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 07:34:43 +0000

I dont know if PHP’s internal implementation of arrays shares something with the implementation of the objects implementing the ArrayAccess interface but if they ever decide to make your idea possible I want to also be able to do:

$myObject->method()[1];

where method() returns an object implementing the ArrayAccess interface.

By: Thijs Lensselink

Thijs Lensselink — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 14:28:46 +0000

Great idea. But to get more exposure from the PHP dev team. It’s probably better to post it to the internals list as a suggestion for the upcomming 5.3.

By: Joakim Nygård

Joakim Nygård — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 14:48:57 +0000

I have often been annoyed by the need to split into two statements. It would be well in line with the chaining that ZF for instance is supporting:

$object->getOtherObject()->getProperty();

One problem is obviously what would happen if the function fails for some reason. Writing it compact like this makes it impossible to verify the return value before continuing.

I think it will be difficult to introduce this feature without better support for declaring return types of functions.

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 13:41:53 +0000

I think this is a great idea for PHP6, it would sure make life easier.

By: Stijn Leenknegt

Stijn Leenknegt — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 22:26:24 +0000

I add something to my blog article. Javascript use this to. Next example shows it.

document.getElementsByTagName(’input’)[1].getAttribute(’value’);

Is javascript owning php? I hope not :p

By: music box

music box — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 11:38:41 +0000

Insanity: a perfectly rational adjustment to the insane world.