CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpreturn
abc
abc

Reputation: 93

Return string but don't echo to the screen

I am trying to understand the return keyword and its functionality, however, I am getting a little confused.

I have read this which has been a good starting point, but I can't seem to understand the solution to what I imagine is a very simple problem.

Say I have a PHP file called index.php and I call a function from it like so (imagine it's not being called from within a class or function);

echo $fun -> editAnswer ($obj->answer_id, $obj->answerString ,$obj->correct, $questionID, $lecturer_id);

Then in my function.php I have:

public function editAnswer($answer_id, $answerString, $correct, $questionID, $lecturer_id){

     $db = $this -> db;


     if (!empty ($answer_id) && !empty ($answerString) && !empty($correct) && !empty($questionID) && !empty ($lecturer_id)){


         $result = $db -> editAnswer($answer_id, $answerString, $correct, $questionID, $lecturer_id);

         if ($result) {

           return "The Updates To Your Answer Have Been Saved!";


         } else {

            $response["result"] = "failure";
            $response["message"] = "The Updates To Your Answer Have Not Been Saved, Please Try Again";
            return json_encode($response);

         }

   } else {

      return $this -> getMsgParamNotEmpty();

   }
}

If successful, I will return the string The Updates To Your Answer Have Been Saved!, however, this will be immediately echoed to the screen of index.php.

My thinking is that if after calling the function, the user was still on index.php, it might look a little ugly to have a string at the top of the page. Maybe I would want to catch the returned string and then create an alert dialog before displaying it.

How would I go about doing something like that rather than immediately echoing the returned string?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1007

Answers (1)

RalfFriedl
RalfFriedl

Reputation: 1130

The return value is echoed because you use echo to output the result.

Save the result to a variable and use it later

$result = $fun -> editAnswer ($obj->answer_id, $obj->answerString ,$obj->correct, $questionID, $lecturer_id);

echo "we called the function"
echo "the result was $result"

Upvotes: 1

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