Array return value of a function

[vitalyb]

I am trying to do something like this:

$temp = mysql_fetch_array(mysql_query("select count(*) from phpbb_posts"))[0];

Which should give me the first field of the first row data straight to $temp. Yet, PHP fails to parse the syntax. Any idea how I can do it?

P.S I obviously can do $temp[0] instead of trying to put [0] on the function itself, but that's now how I want to.

[LordShryku]

You should probably use mysql_data_seek instead

$temp = mysql_data_seek(mysql_query("select count(*) from phpbb_posts"),0);

[gfoot]

Is there really no way of returning an array in a function and dereferencing it in-place?

I'm avoiding littering "global" throughout all functions by using accessor functions, e.g.

$userdata = array(...)

function userdata()
{
    global $userdata;
    return $userdata;
}

but it's not possible to dereference the function's return, i.e. this doesn't parse:

$username = userdata()["username"];

I've ended up making the array accessor methods also support dereferencing, as below, which also allows for checking that the elements do exist, but it still doesn't really "feel good"...

function userdata($key="")
{
    global $userdata;

if (!$key) return $userdata;

if (!isset($userdata[$key])) {
    die("userdata: reference to undefined key '$key'\n");
}

return $userdata[$key];
}