Self Executing functions in PHP5.3?

Question

I was trying to borrow some programing paradigms from JS to PHP (just for fun). Is there a way of doing:

$a = (function(){   return 'a'; })(); 

I was thinking that with the combination of use this can be a nice way to hide variables JS style

$a = (function(){     $hidden = 'a';     return function($new) use (&$hidden){         $hidden = $new;         return $hidden;     }; })(); 

right now I need to do:

$temp = function(){....}; $a = $temp(); 

It seems pointless...

Answer 1

Function Call Chaining, e.g. foo()() is in discussion for PHP5.4. Until then, use call_user_func:

$a = call_user_func(function(){     $hidden = 'a';     return function($new) use (&$hidden){         $hidden = $new;         return $hidden;     }; });  $a('foo');     var_dump($a); 

gives:

object(Closure)#2 (2) {   ["static"]=>   array(1) {     ["hidden"]=>     string(3) "foo"   }   ["parameter"]=>   array(1) {     ["$new"]=>     string(10) "<required>"   } } 

As of PHP7, you can immediately execute anonymous functions like this:

(function() { echo 123; })(); // will print 123