PHP referring array item without extra line

Question

I have the following code which unnecessarily takes up 2 lines:

<?php
$items = get_my_items();
$item4 = $items[4];

// get_my_items()[4] # invalid code
?>

I'm not a beginner but this small thing is nerving whole the time... Any suggestions?

Answer 1

It's called array dereferencing. And it's available as of PHP 5.4. If you want it, upgrade your PHP.