Unpacking

Unpacking has two meanings:

  • unpack(), a PHP native function, which extracts data from a binary string. It has the pack() reverse function.

  • Unpacking arguments, with the ... operator: turning an array into a list of arguments at call time.

<?php

    // Unpacking arguments
    function foo($a, $b, $c) {
        return $a + $b * $c;
    }

    $arguments = ['a' => 1, 'b' => 2, 'c' => 3];
    echo foo(...$arguments);
    // display 7

?>

Related : Variadic, Variadic, Variadic