Does PHP allow named parameters so that optional arguments can be omitted from function calls?

Question

Is it possible in PHP to specify a named optional parameter when calling a function/method, skipping the ones you don't want to specify (like in python)?

Something like:

function foo($a, $b = '', $c = '') {     // whatever }   foo("hello", $c="bar"); // we want $b as the default, but specify $c 

Answer 1

No, it is not possible (before PHP 8.0): if you want to pass the third parameter, you have to pass the second one. And named parameters are not possible either.

A "solution" would be to use only one parameter, an array, and always pass it... But don't always define everything in it.

For instance :

function foo($params) {     var_dump($params); } 

And calling it this way : (Key / value array)

foo([     'a' => 'hello', ]);  foo([     'a' => 'hello',     'c' => 'glop', ]);  foo([     'a' => 'hello',     'test' => 'another one', ]); 

Will get you this output :

array   'a' => string 'hello' (length=5)  array   'a' => string 'hello' (length=5)   'c' => string 'glop' (length=4)  array   'a' => string 'hello' (length=5)   'test' => string 'another one' (length=11) 

But I don't really like this solution :

• You will lose the phpdoc
• Your IDE will not be able to provide any hint anymore... Which is bad

So I'd go with this only in very specific cases -- for functions with lots of optional parameters, for instance...