Bug #76414 [Nab]: return echo("foo"); ought to work as expected

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=76414&edit=1 ID: 76414 Updated by: requinix@php.net Reported by: aleemb at gmail dot com Summary: return echo("foo"); ought to work as expected Status: Not a bug Type: Bug Package: *General Issues Operating System: OSX PHP Version: 7.2.6 Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: > is there any reason echo can't be tweaked to behave in the same manner? Because there's no reason to? echo and print are both doing exactly what they're intended to do. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2018-06-05 11:20:57] spam2 at rhsoft dot net echo is *not* a function - it's a language costruct echo $a, "\n", $b, "\n"; this would not be possible with a function and the difference is that is saves a ton of concat calls compared to echo $a. "\n" . $b . "\n" which does exactly the same but becaus eof the repeatet concat a ton of in-memory-copies a triggered which can be expensive depending on the string sizes ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2018-06-05 11:16:16] aleemb at gmail dot com @requinix, is there any reason echo can't be tweaked to behave in the same manner? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2018-06-05 10:32:39] requinix@php.net Use print(). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2018-06-05 10:30:22] aleemb at gmail dot com Description: ------------ This is either a bug or a feature request, either way the following should work as expected: return echo("foo"); It should echo "foo" and return. Test script: --------------- return echo("foo"); Expected result: ---------------- foo Actual result: -------------- PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected 'echo' (T_ECHO), expecting ';' ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=76414&edit=1