Dereferencing¶
Dereferencing is the action to access a value, which is referenced with a pointer. Since PHP has no pointer, dereferencing applies to accessing an element in an array or an object.
Dereferencing is also possible to function and methods calls: when a function returns an array or an object, it is possible to immediately access one of the element by using the array or method syntax.
<?php
$array = ['a', 'b', 'c'];
echo $array['b'];
function foo() {
return ['x', 'y', 'z'];
}
// Function Array Dereferencing
foo()[2]; // display z
?>
See also Function Array Dereferencing (FAD), Array Dereferencing in PHP and Function Array Dereferencing in PHP (example 8).
Related : Functions, Array, Object, Function Subscripting
