php 7 – generator – yield’s

php 7 has now implement generators where you are able to return (yield) results from a method and only the ones that you will need.

// define the output as type Generator -- e.g. yield results.. the compiler will still work without this Generator keyword
function yieldSomeNumbers() : Generator {  
    yield 10;
    yield 13;
}

foreach (yieldSomeNumbers() as $v) {
    var_dump($v);
}

Will output

10
13

The ‘Generator’ at the end of the method ” : Generator” is not actual needed as the compiler will append it as such on the fly since the method is yield results.

For example, lets say that you are doing a search of numbers from 1-100 and are searching for the value of 10, so before generators the code would have been something like

function generateNumbers() {
    return range(1,100);   // load up a array of values 1-100 e.g. 1,2,3,4,5...
}

foreach (generateNumbers() as $v){
    var_dump($v);
    if ($v == 10) {
        var_dump("FOUND");
        break;
    }
}

The ‘foreach (generateNumbers()’ will be using the full array where as

function generateSomeNumbers() : Generator {
    foreach (range(1,100) as $v) {
        yield $v;
    }
}

foreach (generateSomeNumbers() as $v){
    var_dump($v);
    if ($v == 10) {
        var_dump("FOUND");
        break;
    }
}

will only return each yield upon request.