How to return an array and get the first element of it in one line in PHP?

Question

this question is just for fun and maybe learning a PHP shorthand trick (if exists) Let\'s assume that I have this code:

$item = $this->get_item($id);
$item =          


        

Answer 1

In PHP 5.4 this becomes an easy one-liner

As of PHP 5.4 it is possible to array dereference the result of a function or method call directly. Before it was only possible using a temporary variable.

$firstElement = getArray()[0];

where

function getArray() {
    return array(1, 2, 3);
}

Taken from a slightly modified version of Example #7 from the PHP manual pages (Arrays).