note 23800 added to functions

From: Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 08:10:51 +0000
Subject: note 23800 added to functions
Groups: php.notes 
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PHP's variable scope is a very useful feature... if you feel the need to declare variables inside functions global, then there's surely a better way to do what you want to do. A function should, like an Object, know as little as possible about its calling environment. An example here was to have a function set certain configuration variables. However instead, why not return an associative array? Like this: ------- function set_config() { return array("items_per_page" => 10, "allow_html" => 0); } $conf = set_config(); ------- This is a flexible solution because you can replace this simple piece of code with one that fetches the variable's values from a database or a file, without having to change the code that calls the function. PHP has some very useful language features that often seem alien to people coming from a JavaScript or VB background, but rather than seeing them as 'bad design decisions', think of their cool possibilities and uses. -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/functions.php http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=edit+23800 http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+23800 http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=reject+23800

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