Hi, I'm wondering if there is any built-in PHP primitives to perform the
same task as this simple, almost trivial function:
function get(&$var) {
return $var;
}
?
It is useful for accessing arrays where some fields may be unset. For
example:
************************************************
<?php
function get(&$var) {
return $var;
}
$arr = array();
$arr[5] = 'sam';
$arr[2] = 'chris';
$arr[3] = null;
$fromGet5 = get($arr[5]);
$fromGet1 = get($arr[1]);
echo "Value of fromGet5 is $fromGet5\n";
echo "Value of fromGet1 is $fromGet1\n";
$fromGet5 = 'fred';
echo "Value of fromGet5 is now $fromGet5\n";
echo "Value of arr[5] is still $arr[5]\n";
**************************************************
Assigning the value directly, without the function, as in <$fromGet1 =
&$arr[1]> transfers the value & the reference, which is undesirable &
likely to lead to hard to detect bugs. Assignment without a reference
generates errors for undefined array keys.
The inline code (isset($arr[1]) ? $arr[1] : NULL) is cumbersome to keep
typing over & over again & logically might be less efficient since it
appears to fetch arr[1] twice, though there may be some hidden optimization.
It seems like there should be a built in primitive called 'get' or
'ifset' that does this task.
Wondering how others handle this issue & what I might be missing...
