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 $c
No, it is not possible : if you want to pass the third parameter, you have to pass the second one. And named parameters are not possible either.
A "solution" would be to use only one parameter, an array, and always pass it... But don't always define everything in it.
For instance :
function foo($params) {
var_dump($params);
}
And calling it this way :
foo(array(
'a' => 'hello',
));
foo(array(
'a' => 'hello',
'c' => 'glop',
));
foo(array(
'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 :
So I'd go with this only in very specific cases -- for functions with lots of optionnal parameters, for instance...