Named Return Values¶
Go lets a function declare names for its return values as part of its signature, such as func divmod(a, b int) (q, r int). Those names act as ordinary local variables, pre-initialized to their zero value, that the function can assign to throughout its body; a bare return statement, with no expression, returns their current values. Combined with defer, a named return value can even be modified after the return statement has been reached but before the function actually exits, which is how Go idiomatically attaches an error to a return value from within a deferred recovery.
Naming the return values also documents, directly in the signature, what each returned position represents, which plain positional return types do not.
PHP has no named return values. A return statement always requires an explicit expression, PHP’s return type declaration only names a type, never the value itself, and a returned array or object’s fields are named through the value itself, not through the function’s signature. The closest equivalent is documenting the meaning of each key in a returned array or object through PHPDoc, which conveys names to the reader but is not enforced or usable as an implicit accumulator the way Go’s named returns are.
Related : Return, Return Type, Defer Statement, Multiple Return Values
