Is there a way to access $foo from within inner()?
function outer()
{
$foo = "...";
function inner()
{
// print $foo
}
inner();
}
outer();
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5 Answers
PHP<5.3 does not support closures, so you'd have to either pass $foo to inner() or make $foo global from within both outer() and inner() (BAD).
In PHP 5.3, you can do
function outer()
{
$foo = "...";
$inner = function() use ($foo)
{
print $foo;
};
$inner();
}
outer();
outer();3 Comments
simshaun
@Matchu, the extra outer() call there is on purpose to show that there is no problem calling it twice. Calling outer() more than once using the function definition provided by the OP results in an error, because it's trying to redeclare inner().
Emanuil Rusev
I feel like PHP 5.3 is such a huge step forward for the language. Too bad it is not very widely available with hosting services.
elliot42
Thank you so much for this, this makes me incredibly happy to get this functionality back like I expect from other languages.
Or am I missing something more complex you are trying to do?
function outer()
{
$foo = "...";
function inner($foo)
{
// print $foo
}
inner($foo);
}
outer();
edit Ok i think i see what you are trying to do. You can do this with classes using global, but not sure about this particular case
2 Comments
Matchu
Don't forget to pass
$foo in your call to inner(). Edited.Emanuil Rusev
You'd have to pass
$foo to inner in order for this to work. Anyway, I'm looking for a solution that would not involve changing function definitions.I know this can be done with classes, however with standalone functions I was sure you could not do a retrieval without setting a public/private variable.
But the only possible way that I can think of (not being experienced with this type of stuff) is passing $foo over to inner then doing the echo or print. :)
Comments
I do not think it is possible.
PHP Manual has some comment around this and none of them seam to find a solution.
http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.scope.php#77693
Another comment suggests that nested functions are not actually "nested" for real
http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.scope.php#20407
Comments
I would like to mention that this is possibly not the best way to do coding, as you are defining a function within another. There is always a better option than doing in such a way.
function outer()
{
global $foo;
$foo = "Let us see and understand..."; // (Thanks @Emanuil)
function inner()
{
global $foo;
print $foo;
}
inner();
}
outer();
This will output:-
Let us see and understand...
Instead of writing this way, you could have written the folowing code snippet:-
function outer()
{
$foo = "Let us see improved way...";
inner($foo);
print "\n";
print $foo;
}
function inner($arg_foo)
{
$arg_foo .= " and proper way...";
print $arg_foo;
}
outer();
This last code snippet will output:-
Let us see improved way... and proper way...
Let us see improved way...
But at last, it is up to you always, as to which process you are going to use. So hope it helps.
1 Comment
Emanuil Rusev
It wouldn't for at least a couple of reasons. You can't use global and assign a value in the same statement and if you could this would still require
global $foo inside inner() in order to work.