Calling a function that is inside another function

Question

I have following files:

1. arrayLoader.php
2. chooseProgram.php

I want to call a function from chooseProgram.php that is inside another function in arrayLoader.php .

Here's the error message I'm getting:

Fatal error: Call to a member function loadTitles() on null in C:\\xampp\\htdocs\\testing\\chooseProgram.php on line 6

arrayLoader.php

function arrayLoader() {
    $arrayLoad = (file_get_contents("../files/TEMP_Array"));
    function loadTitles() {
        return $arrayLoad;
    }
    return;
}

chooseProgram.php

require('../tools/arrayLoader.php');
print "<pre>";
print_r(arrayLoader()->loadTitles());
print "</pre>";

I've googled, but I either don't understand what's going on, or what I've tried doesn't work.

Can anyone help? Thanks.

Answer 1

function loadTitles is dependent on arrayLoader so you should first call arrayLoader and then loadTitles .

ie. It will work.

    <?php
    abc();
    xyz();
       function abc(){
        echo "abc";
        function xyz(){
            echo "xyz";
        }
       }
    ?>

and it will not work

    <?php
    xyz();
       function abc(){
        echo "abc";
        function xyz(){
            echo "xyz";
        }
       }
    ?>

because xyz is not defined untill abc is not called.

Answer 2

I don't know what is the point of having nested function but this can be done by changing parent function to a class:

class arrayLoader {

   function loadTitles() {
       $arrayLoad = (file_get_contents("../files/TEMP_Array"));
       return $arrayLoad;
   }
}

require('../tools/arrayLoader.php');
$obj=new arrayLoader;
$result=$obj->loadTitles();
print "<pre>";
print_r($result);
print "</pre>";