CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpanonymous-function
GOTO 0
GOTO 0

Reputation: 47791

Can we call an anonymous function without storing it in a variable in PHP?

In Javascript, it's easy to call a function returned by another function in one single statement. Consider for example:

function createOperation(operator)
{
    return Function("a", "b", "return a " + operator + "b;")
}

var result = createOperation("*")(2, 3);

Here, we call a function to create another function that multiplies two values, then call this new function with two arguments.

If I try to replicate a similar code snippet in PHP, I end up using two statements and one extra variable:

function createOperation(operator)
{
    return create_function('$a,$b', 'return $a '.$operator.' $b;');
}

$temp_var = createOperation("+");
$result = $temp_var(2, 3);

The short, Javascript-like form doesn't work:

$result = createOperation("+")(2, 3);

This is especially tedious when writing an invocation chain (pseudocode):

foo(arg1)(arg2, arg3)()(...)

Which would become:

$temp1 = foo($arg1);
$temp2 = $temp1($arg2, $arg3);
$temp3 = $temp2();
...

So my question is: is there a way in PHP to call a function returned by another function without using temporary variables, or at least in one single same statement?

Upvotes: 4

Views: 113

Answers (1)

georg
georg

Reputation: 215009

As seen in php repo, @NikiC is actively working on implementing his RFC, the ()() syntax is already in the trunk:

https://github.com/php/php-src/commit/64e4c9eff16b082f87e94fc02ec620b85124197d

I don't know what the release map looks like, hope we'll get decent syntax in php very soon.

Upvotes: 1

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