Question

I feel like there is some way of doing this with a shortcut:

$date_array = explode("-", $date);
$day = $date_array[2];

Something like:

$day = explode("-", $date)[2];

Basically getting the answer and setting it to something?

Can’t remember, but aren’t there a bunch of fancy “=” things like .= concatenation. Are there other shortcuts like that? Can’t seem to find an article on Google with all the shortcuts.

I hate having to make a $date_array when all I honestly want is the $day, makes me feel like my code isn’t efficient.

EDIT: Changed the title to be more universal, can’t think of anything great.

Answer 1

As the new features in PHP 5.4 page says, the syntax you suggest (known as function array dereferencing) is now possible as of that version.

$day = explode("-", $date)[2];

This will not work, however, in 5.3 or before.