Techniques for Working with Return in PHP

There are some techniques for working with return that simplify the code.

Consider, for example, the following code:

php<?php
  function func($num) {
    if ($num >= 0) {
      $res = sqrt($num);
    } else {
      $res = 0;
    }
    
    return $res;
  }
  
  echo func(3);
?>

As you can see, in this code, depending on the condition, either one or another value will be assigned to the variable $res. And the last line of the function returns the contents of this variable via return.

Let's rewrite this code in a more shortened form, getting rid of the unnecessary variable $res:

php<?php
  function func($num) {
    if ($num >= 0) {
      return sqrt($num);
    } else {
      return 0;
    }
  }
  
  echo func(3);
?>

php<?php
  function func($num1, $num2) {
    if ($num1 > 0 and $num2 > 0) {
      $res = $num1 * $num2;
    } else {
      $res = $num1 - $num2;
    }
    
    return $res;
  }
  
  echo func(3, 4);
?>