Question

I have a function and I need it to return two arrays.

I know a function can only return one variable .. is there a way to return my two arrays?

If I concatenate them, how can I separate them cleanly when out of the function?

Answer 1

No need to concatenate: just return array of two arrays, like this:

function foo() {
    return array($firstArray, $secondArray);
}

… then you will be able to assign these arrays to the local variables with list, like this:

list($firstArray, $secondArray) = foo();

And if you work with PHP 5.4, you can use array shortcut syntax here as well:

function foo54() {
    return [$firstArray, $secondArray];
}