Beginner PHP Tutorial - 32 - Functions with a Return Value Video Lecture | PHP for Absolute Beginners: From Novice to PHP Master - Web Development

hello this is Alex from PHP academy' de
org and this is another video for the
new Boston we are dealing with functions
with return values in this video if you
haven't already watched the other two
videos on functions do so now what we're
doing is we are asking the question what
do we want to do if we want to say to a
function inside a function we don't want
to necessarily echo the contents of a
function L and for this we use something
called a return return value we return a
specific value or the value that's
calculated within a function this can be
a string value this can be an integer it
can be anything any any variable that we
can return now the idea of the program
I'm going to be the small program I'm
going to create in this is we want to
create a function that divides two
numbers but we also want to create a
function that adds two numbers and then
what we want to do is want to create a
sum similar to this so we want to add
ten and ten together for example of five
and five together and the result of this
operation would be ten add 10 which is
20 divided by five at 5 which is 10 so
the answer would be 2 20 divided by 10
is 2 so this is what we want to do
however if we're creating a function
here called add and we are taking two
numbers so number one number two and
we're echoing out number one plus number
two what we're doing is we're outputting
this result to the browser we're not
storing it as a variable we're just
simply outputting it now we could say
create something like result equals and
then we could say echo result however
we're not changing any we're not really
changing how the code works all we're
doing is making it longer for ourselves
so what we really want to do is we want
to be storing a result but then instead
of echoing it we want to be returning
the result now you don't always have to
return or even echo or anything in a
funk
a function can purely work in itself and
not display any output it doesn't need
to display output however we're
returning the result of this now look
what happens when I go to add two
numbers together we add 10 and 10 we're
putting a parameter we're putting an
argument in here which is 10 that's
equal to number 1 and then 10 which is
equal to number 2 here so the result is
going to be basically 10 in this case
add 10 and we're returning the result
which will be 20 so I've called this now
what's going to happen absolutely
nothing and the reason for this is this
now is equal to 20 but we're not doing
anything with it we're calling the
function we're supplying it with
arguments but we're not doing anything
with there so in fact what we can now do
is echo out the function in itself and
what this is going to do is it basically
means we can either use this as a
variable on its own or we can echo it
out to display it to the user so this
will now echo out 20 to the screen and
what this means is that I could say add
10 10 plus a hundred and echo that out
so what we're doing is we're including
this function the cooled function inside
another mathematical sum so now let's
refresh and we should get the result 120
which we do so you can see now though
instead of occurring a value we're
returning a value therefore we've got so
much more freedom now to use this as a
variable in itself so the example I
showed was we had an operation here
which was 10 at 10 should really be
displayed at this 10 at 10 and 5 at 5:00
and the result of this is going to be 2
so how are we going to do this we need a
function to add which we've already got
we've got a function to add up here
which we can use for this and we can use
for this we don't need two different
functions we can add 10 add 5 at 10 and
10 at 5 at 5 and it will produce the
same result with the same phone
but now we need a function to divide so
we create a function to divide exactly
the same way as we've done we supply a
number in here so number one number two
now these values here these variables
here are superficial they're not
actually declared variables they're just
telling you what well they are but
they're just telling you what we need to
read it so you can name them the same
name we've called number one and number
two here and we've called it number one
number two here so we can do exactly the
same thing result result equals number
one divided by number two and then we
return the result okay so now let's run
this program to make sure we don't have
any errors which I don't think we will
do no now we need to take the original
sum that I wanted to achieve and we need
to put it into practice with just these
two functions and it's simple we need to
create a variable called result or you
can call it anything you like and we're
in fact let's call it sum and that is
equal to divide okay we need 10 open
well we need a value here and a value
here so what we can now do is add
something inside this function so we're
adding 10 and 10 and we're adding five
and five but we're dividing 20 now by 10
so we've declared or with called a
function within a function instead of
occurring at returning values so now
down here we can simply echo sum so if
you look carefully the logic of this
you'll understand how this can be done
so now let's refresh and we've got our
result of to which we required from the
star so this is basically how to return
a value in a function and you can see
how useful it is instead of just echoing
something out or just performing an
operation
we're actually returning something for
the user or for
to use as the variable as a whole rather
than just a function to echo out the
result of what we've done inside the
function