Question

This is my first question so please be patience.This question may sounds childish but I really want to know that what is a function in programming? How they are defined and how they are called to execute. I am just learning php. I have seen many functions like this

function myfunction () {
 --------
 --------
}

and another type function like this

function myfunction (some variables) {
------------
------------
}

I want to know what is the difference in between them? Any help and suggestions or any valuable link will be more appreciated. Before down voting this question any comments or any good learning link will be more helpful to me.

Answer 1

Those functions are exactly the same except for what they are provided (in terms of data). The first one requires no variables to be passed to it externally to run.

The second one has variables it does use that are passed from it externally, however, these may not be required as default values can be set for these variables.

A function in programming is used to perform a repetitive task, such as removing underscores from a string and making the first letter of each word a capital.

To define a variable, the simplest way is to do this:

function my_function () {
  // Function code here
}

To call this function, you need to make sure it is accessible (e.g. included on the page), you simply do:

my_function();

That will execute the function and potentially return it’s results.

You can also pass variables to functions as stated, but I recommend looking up tutorials on PHP functions.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=PHP+Functions … lots of results for you 🙂

This explanation is PHP specific, other languages may vary.