Re: note 11784 deleted from echo by ronabop

It seems too many notes for echo(). http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.echo.php My suggestion for PHP Manual regarding to echo() and function() (Since I posted a bug for script engine and wasted people's time before) I think it would be nice to rewrite( or add) the line "echo() is not a function" to "echo() does not return value. Therefore, echo() cannot be a valid expression". Because this would be the information PHP users need. (I cannot think of function/construct does not return value now. There may be some, but I'm sure it rare, isn't it?) In the manual, it states "echo() is not a function". In reality, it does not matters for most of cases. For example, one can write isset($var) ? include('true.php') : require('false.php'); //This is valid Since include()/require()/include_once()/require_once() returns value (= valid expression). Programmer can use these language construct just like normal functions even if these are not a function. In addition to this, function section in PHP Manual does not clearly states, function ALWAYS returns a value (NULL for PHP4.0.4pl1) even if programmer does not return any. So it was unclear for me that echo() does not return value (!= valid expression) It also be nice to mention clearly that user defined function always returns a value in function section(s). http://www.php.net/manual/en/functions.php http://www.php.net/manual/en/functions.returning-values.php It would be valuable info for some programmers, since PHP's function is always valid expression and can use it as RValue. There is no way for PHP to know it is a invalid expression, if programmers use user defined function's implicit return value as RValue by mistake. (Well semantically ok under PHP, but not ok for programmers) Fortunately, I don't see such code yet, though. Hope this info helps. Regards, -- Yasuo Ohgaki ----- Original Message ----- From: <ronabop@php.net> Newsgroups: php.notes Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 2:46 PM Subject: [PHP-NOTES] note 11784 deleted from echo by ronabop > echo() is not function, following code is invalid. > > ($some_var) ? echo('true'): echo('false'); > > Print() works > ($some_var) ? print('true'): print('false'); > > I thought this is a parser bug at first, but it was not. > > -- > PHP Notes Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-notes-unsubscribe@lists.php.net > For additional commands, e-mail: php-notes-help@lists.php.net > To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin@lists.php.net >