What is the return value of a PHP function?

PHP functions can return scalar values, arrays, objects, or NULL. To declare a return value, use the return type hint in the function declaration. PHP does not support returning multiple values ​​directly, but you can use an array or object to group them and return them.

Return value of PHP function

In PHP, a function can return a value, which can be any PHP data type , including:

• Scalar value (string, integer, floating point number, Boolean value)
• Array
• Object
• NULL

Return value declaration

To declare the return value of a function, use return in the function declaration Type hint:

function get_name(): string
{
    return "John Doe";
}

This means that the get_name() function will return a string.

Return multiple values

PHP does not support returning multiple values ​​directly. However, you can use an array or object to group multiple values ​​and return them.

Practical case

Consider the following function, which returns the largest element in an array:

function find_max(array $array): int
{
    if (empty($array)) {
        return 0;
    }
    $max = $array[0];
    foreach ($array as $element) {
        if ($element > $max) {
            $max = $element;
        }
    }
    return $max;
}

$array = [1, 3, 5, 2, 4];
$max_value = find_max($array); // 5

This function will $array The maximum value of is stored in the $max_value variable.

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