can a function return more than one var?

laeelin

is it possible for me to pass more than one variable when a function returns?

function catlist($cat) {

// code to find information .. $information

...........

// code to build some html

return $information, $html
}

In some cases it would be easire to have both things returned and ran in the same function.

is it possible to do it?

Thanks
David

ajmoore

The short answer to your question is no...you can't return more than one value using the return function. There are ways to retrieve more than one value from a function however. You could always create an array of the values that you need to return and return the array.

example:

function myFunction() {
$values = array();
$values[0] = "first var";
$values[1] = "second var";
$values[3] = "third var";

return $values;
}

You could also pass the necessary variables to the function by reference which would eliminate the need to return a value at all....

laeelin

You could also pass the necessary variables to the function by reference which would eliminate the need to return a value at all....

are you talking about useing global variables there?

thanks
david

Sxooter

Originally posted by laeelin
are you talking about useing global variables there?

thanks
david

No, it's not quite the same thing. Passing by reference means that you pass in the "address" of the data structure the function will manipulate. In other words, the function will change it in place, and there's no need for a global keyword or anything.

Arc

You can always return the values in a delimited string then use the explode function to get all the values

Function GetData($One, $Two, $Three){

Return $One."-".$Two."-".$Three;
}



$MyArray = explode("-" , GetData($txtOne,$txtTwo,$txtThree));

Print $MyArray[0] ;
Print $MyArray[1] ;
Print $MyArray[2] ;

Sxooter

My preferred method is to create an indexed array like:

$ret['name']="bob";
$ret['address']="123 Sesame St.";
$ret['fieldn']="more crap";

return $ret;