Question

Is there a way to access a specific element of an array that’s returned from a function in PHP right from the function call? Let’s say I have a function called getMostRecentPost() and it returns an array. I want to be able to do something like this:

echo getMostRecentPost()['title'];

That doesn’t work. Other languages seem to allow this kind of syntax though. Right now my solution is to do this:

$mostRecentPost = getMostRecentPost();
echo $mostRecentPost['title'];

Are there any shortcuts that will allow me to cut out declaring a variable? Do I have my syntax wrong?

Answer 1

That’s possible with PHP 5.4, quoting:

As of PHP 5.4 it is possible to array dereference the result of a
function or method call directly. Before it was only possible using a
temporary variable.

Example from php.net:

function getArray() {
    return array(1, 2, 3);
}

// on PHP 5.4
$secondElement = getArray()[1];

More Info:

• http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.array.php