Question

currently I have the following code

inside my ‘function.php’ is

function calcTime($database_name,$currentTime){

    global $startTime;
    global $endTime;

    ...calcutions

    return $startTime;
    return $endTime;
}//end calcTime()

inside my main ‘index.php’ I have

include('/function.php');

$databaseName = foo;

$currentTime = 12.30;

function begin($database_name,$currentTime){

    ...some calculations

    calcTime($database_name,$currentTime); //calling the function from other file

echo $startTime;

echo $endTime;

}// end begin()

The problem I am having is that the variables that are declared inside the inner function do not pass through to the outer function. I have declared the variables globals and returned them. Not sure whats going on.

something interesting though, if I echo calcTime($database_name,$currentTime); the $startTime is returned but not $endTime.

Please help. I have functions that are used throughout other functions that I would like to use in this fashion. Thank you!!

Answer 1

The global keyword in PHP is used to access global variables which were declared outside of the function. It’s syntactic sugar for writing $var =& $GLOBALS['var'].

There are at least two options how you could return your two variables from your function: call-by-ref or returning an array:

function calcTime($database_name,$currentTime){
    return array('start' => $startTime, 'end' =>  $endTime);
}

$times = calcTime(…, …);
echo $times['start'], ' and ', $times['end'];
// or:
list($start, $end) = calcTime(…, …);
echo $start, ' and ', $end;

Or, passing the arguments as references:

function calcTime($database_name,$currentTime, &$startTime, &$endTime){
    $startTime = …;
    $endTime = …;
}

$startTime = 0;
$endTime = 0;
calcTime(…, …, $startTime, $endTime);
echo $startTime, ' and ', $endTime;