Is there a way to do this in one step?

Question

$clients = $CLIENT->find($options); $client = $clients[0];

EDIT: I Realized i should be clearer. The $CLIENT->find always returns an array of objects, but I want one line of code that turns the array (that will only have 1 object) into just an object.

Answer 1

Unless ($CLIENT->find($options))[0] works (IIRC I don't think it does in PHP, but don't take my word for it), I don't think you can condense that. I really don't think it's worth worrying about, though - if you need a one-statement expression for it, just write a function.

function fozzyle($options) {
    $clients = $CLIENT->find($options);
    return $clients[0];
}

Answer 2

$client = $CLIENT->find($options)[0];

doesn't work?

Answer 3

$client = reset($CLIENT->find($options));

Edit: Here's a less obfuscated one, you should probably use this instead:

list($client) = $CLIENT->find($options);

They aren't identical though; the first one will also work in places where a single scalar is expected (inside a function's parameter list) but the second won't (list() returns void).

Answer 4

$client = array_shift($CLIENT->find($options));

Answer 5

Have you considered method-chaining?

This will allow you to do a lot with only one line of code. Note also that this would be better for larger and more long-term OO solutions. If you just need a quick and dirty solution, perhaps just a custom function that returns the first item in an array.

Help: If somebody can find a better reference for method-chaining, please update this.

Answer 6

$client = array_shift($CLIENT->find($options));

$client will be your object or NULL if find() doesn't return anything.