Getting variable from one function and pass to another in PHP - php

Question

I have a functiona within a function. Function B gets a value from an API and passes it to function A. However, when I echo the value within Function B it works but it is null when called in function A.
Should I be storing the value in a session variable or DB between loops?
function getFBLikes($postid) {
//Get total number of likes per post
$query = '/likes?summary=1&filter=stream';
$request_likes = BASE_URL
.$postid
.$query
.ACCESS_TOKEN;
$result_likes = json_decode(file_get_contents($request_likes), true);
foreach ($result_likes as $a => $b) {
if(isset($b['total_count'])) {
$likes = $b['total_count'];
echo $likes /* THIS APPEARS AS A CORRECT VALUE */
}
}
}
function getPostDetails($array){
foreach ($array as $a => $b) {
if(isset($b['type'])) {
if(isset($b['object_id'])){
$postid = $b['object_id'];
$shares = $b['shares']['count'];
$type = $b['type'];
getFBLikes($postid);
echo $likes; /* THIS IS NULL */
}
}
}
}

Answer 1

Add
return $likes;
to getFBLikes and
use it like this in getPostDetails
$likes = getFBLikes($postid);

Answer 2

function getFBLikes($postid) {
//Get total number of likes per post
$query = '/likes?summary=1&filter=stream';
$request_likes = BASE_URL
.$postid
.$query
.ACCESS_TOKEN;
$result_likes = json_decode(file_get_contents($request_likes), true);
foreach ($result_likes as $a => $b) {
if(isset($b['total_count'])){
$likes = $b['total_count'];
//ADDED
return $likes;
}
}
}
function getPostDetails($array){
foreach ($array as $a => $b) {
if(isset($b['type'])) {
if(isset($b['object_id'])){
$postid = $b['object_id'];
$shares = $b['shares']['count'];
$type = $b['type'];
//CHANGED
$likes = getFBLikes($postid);
echo $likes; /* THIS SHOULD NO LONGER BE NULL */
}
}
}
}
Should do the trick.
The problem you have here is getPostDetails is taling to getFBLikes,
but getFBLikes is not 'responsing' (returning) anything to you're getPostDetails so when you tried echoing the number of likes it was going to be null because essentially it wasnt being told how many likes there were

Answer 3

You need to have getFBLikes() return a value.
From the docs:
If called from within a function, the return statement immediately ends execution of the current function, and returns its argument as the value of the function call.
Sample solution:
in getFBLikes() add:
echo $likes /* THIS APPEARS AS A CORRECT VALUE */
return $likes
in getPostDetails() you can access the value with:
$likes = getFBLikes($postid); /* getFBLikes() will be return a value in $likes