Are there plans to allow anonymous functions as callbacks? View as Markdown

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 2:33 PM, Richard Quadling
rquadling@googlemail.com wrote:

Hi.

Quite a simple question (assuming I've got the terminology correct).

Are there any plans to allow code like this (amended example taken
from the array_map() documentation) ...

<?php
$a = array(1, 2, 3, 4, 5);
$b = array_map(function($n){return($n * $n * $n)}, $a);
print_r($b);

For me, this is cleaner than having a use-once, namespace-polluting function.

Currently, this is producing a parse error.

It works. You have a typo. You need to put ";" after return (…)

A real alternative though would be to allow nested functions...

<?php
function cube_array($a) {
 function cube($n) {
   return($n * $n * $n);
 }
 return array_map("cube", $a);
}
$a = array(1, 2, 3, 4, 5);
$b = cube_array($a);
print_r($b);

Ideally, cube() would not be visible outside of cube_array(). Scoped functions.

Regards,

Richard Quadling.

---

Richard Quadling
Zend Certified Engineer : http://zend.com/zce.php?c=ZEND002498&r=213474731
"Standing on the shoulders of some very clever giants!"

--

--
Alexey Zakhlestin
http://www.milkfarmsoft.com/

You need PHP 5.3 for that. Here's the RFC:

http://wiki.php.net/rfc/closures

Hi.

Quite a simple question (assuming I've got the terminology correct).

Are there any plans to allow code like this (amended example taken
from the array_map() documentation) ...

<?php
$a = array(1, 2, 3, 4, 5);
$b = array_map(function($n){return($n * $n * $n)}, $a);
print_r($b);

For me, this is cleaner than having a use-once, namespace-polluting function.

Currently, this is producing a parse error.

A real alternative though would be to allow nested functions...

<?php
function cube_array($a) {
function cube($n) {
return($n * $n * $n);
}
return array_map("cube", $a);
}
$a = array(1, 2, 3, 4, 5);
$b = cube_array($a);
print_r($b);

Ideally, cube() would not be visible outside of cube_array(). Scoped functions.

Regards,

Richard Quadling.

--
Ionut G. Stan
I'm under construction | http://igstan.blogspot.com/