According to Wikipedia, Syntactic sugar is syntax within a programming language that is designed to make things easier to read or to express.
Though PHP doesn’t necessarily have much concept of sugaring, I across this one example sometime back. The idea here is to add a given set of values to an array but at the alternating ends.
Example
For a given set of values, 10, 12, 124, 349, 43, 0, 493, 3, 32. The output should have values pushed to each end alternatively. So, the first value into the array would be 10, 2nd would be 12, pushed to the end (or at the start), 3rd pushed other and so on.
#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 32 493 493 493 43 43 43 43 43 124 124 124 124 124 124 124 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 349 349 349 349 349 349 0 0 0 0 3 3
The function here loops over an array pushes values in array $e
alternatively.
$x = [10, 12, 124, 349, 43, 0, 493, 3, 32]; $i = 0; foreach ($e as $v) { (array_.[unshift,push][++$i%2])($e,$d); }
It’s an array with the two function names ['array_push','array_unshift']
with [++$i%2]
as the index of the array alternating between a 0
or 1
so will evaluate to the other function each time. PHP’s “variable functions” let you assign a variable to a function and execute by calling with parenthesis (ex: $f='array_push'; $f($e,$d);
== array_push($e,$d)
) so the ($e,$d)
is then calling the evaluated element of the array.
Just a shorter way to do
if (++$i%2) array_push($e,$d); else array_unshift($e,$e);