Determining calling context?

[evan_k]

I'm wondering if there's a way to determine, from within a function, whether said function was called as the right operand of an assignment, or whether any return value would be ignored. For example, I'd want to perform different actions in these cases:

// assigning to a variable, so return a string
$key = get_user_key();

// no assignment, so echo it straight to client
get_user_key();

Is there a way to determine this, that anyone is aware of?

[Horizon88]

Just always return the string - then it can be set to a variable or echoed. I don't know what context you're trying to write the function for, though.

[halojoy]

hi!

I dont know any way you can do this from within a function.

But PHP has got several functions, that either echo or only return.

PHP in these cases has got an optional flag, true/false, as argument.

For example:

// this means echo return value
print_r( $a );

// this will not echo, but return the output
$b = print_r( $a, true);

You use an optional, extra argument
This is how you can do this in your function

<?php

function myfunc( $a, $ret=false ){

// do something with $a

if( $ret ){
    return $something;
}
else{
    echo $something;
    return;
}

}